About $0.10 over the last month. The freefall that crude took last year made the retail price get a little kooky. Retailers actually lowered their prices to much and too fast. That's stabilized now.

No goofiness on the micro level, though? I was getting that gist from your previous post.

Perhaps I misread?

[JOKE}I'm not an economist by trade, but I did take a class at Community College, so I AM an expert [/JOKE]:-)

I don't see gas going down. I'm no economist, but the amount of oil that actually gets made into unleaded fuel isn't as much as you'd think. Fuel I hate to say, with the amount of cars on the road, will always have a certain base level of demand. When oil goes down, its not being based so much on cars driving less (though this is some) as much as other things.

One thing you'll notice is that Diesel has dropped more than unleaded, and are now almost the same price. This, IMO is kinda what I'm talking about. Construction has stopped, and a lot of big machines that use diesel aren't in as high demand as they were.

Oil has many factors that make it drop, Unleaded fuel demand is only one. Even though fuel is staying even, its one of the few aspects that is. Other factors are what's causing the decline.

I wrote that it will be fun (for me anyway) to watch because of a few things:

1) The recession. It should place a damper on the demand increase typically seen in the Spring.

2) If demand does jump, how high will crude climb? I would guess to around $50.00 or $60.00, which is where it should have been last year.

3) What is the trigger point for the oil companies to begin serious E&P again? If crude doesn't hit that magic number and stay there, they won't. If demand goes back up to high levels and they aren't looking for new crude supplies, well...

You get about 27 gallons of gasoline and diesel from a 42-gallon barrel of crude.

Gas had better stay low, I'm about to buy a truck with a V-8 and I don't want to have to park the ****ing thing all summer.

Thanks. This is what I was wondering about.

I'm interested in point three, too.

I miss the days of $1.30 gas.

Then why buy it then? Are you not contributing to the demand by buying that gas hog?

Blame HemiEd, he's the one who told me to get the V-8.

I will not bitch until it is over 2.00 at my neighbor hood gas station. I think it's at about 1.97 right now. Shouldn't take long and I'll be raising hell again.

1.69 here

1.76 here.

I won't bitch again until it hits 2.25 which is probably about where it should be.

1.67 here

Soon, we will all be saying "I miss the days of $1.79" gas"

Try $.50 here. :mad:

Interestingly (to me anyway), diesel hasn't changed at all. There is only about a 40 cents difference now.

Crude up $2.59 (6.62%) at $41.70 today.

Gasoline at $1.51 here.

$2.23 here in San Francisco. Heh.

$1.69

Oddly, it seems gas has gone down about a dime in the last week here. Currently ethanol is 1.67 in Omaha, 1.57 across the river in Council Bluffs...

Looks like gas prices are finally coming down again. Here in MO, prices have dipped below $1.50/ gallon after being $1.69 just a couple of weeks ago.

When a commuter pulled into a gas station in Richland, Wash., to fill up the tank of his 1994 Camaro on Tuesday, he thought the $90 he had on his PayPal debit card would easily cover the $26 bill.

But the tab for fuel at the By-Pass Deli and Conoco station off state Route 240 maxed out his card, and then some, the Tri-City Herald reported Thursday on its Web site.

The transaction, Juan Zamora told the newspaper, was recorded as $81,400,836,908.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29418529/from/ET/?gt1=43001


That's gotta smart!

My station had regular at 1.63 at 3pm Thursday. At 10pm, that same station went up to 1.89

WTF?

Well, because wholesale price for the APRIL contract rose to $1.20 yesterday...:rolleyes:

2.02 in Ft. Lauderdale.

Woops, my bad, according to an article on yahoo, it says that overnight NYMEX trading, gas fell 2 cents to $1.28/gal., for April unleaded....

Jumped from 1.64 to 1.79 here yesterday.

Crude nearing $50/barrel right now.

1.79-1.99

Same here.

Drill Here, Drill Now!! :spock:

I'm paying around 2.05 a gallon right now. Of course we do have the highest gas tax in the nation.

Oil prices rise to highest in two months
Investors gear up for the potential of more OPEC production cuts
The Associated Press
updated 2:42 p.m. CT, Mon., March. 9, 2009

Oil prices rose to the highest level in two months as investors geared up for the potential of more OPEC production cuts.

Benchmark crude for April delivery gained $1.55 to settle at $47.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A barrel of oil, which last cost more than $50 in early January, had reached as high as $48.83 earlier in the day.

Oil has been ready for a recovery, and historically it's hard to find a 30-day window kinder to the market than about March 15 through April 15, said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service.

Kloza said prices seem to be heading toward the $50 threshold.

"It's almost like it's on a natural trajectory that should see it do that," he said. "That doesn't mean we've started a big bull market. It's just sort of we're in a window here for a typical recovery and a little bit of a spring rally."

The rally surged even as the dollar rebounded against other major currencies. Investors are prone to buy commodities like oil and gold as a protection against inflation and dollar weakness.

"It might indicate to a lot of folks that watch it that if it wasn't for the dollar, we might already be knocking on the door of $50," Kloza said.

Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates, said the crude market has held up in the face of another downdraft in the stock markets.

Oil investors often look to stock markets as a measure of sentiment on the overall economy, but crude has risen from below $35 a barrel last month despite the major U.S. equity indexes plunging to 12-year lows last week.

"We've seen a disconnect for almost a week, and a lot of bullish-inclined traders are viewing that as a tip-off that we may have placed a bottom in the crude," he said. "I think we have placed a bottom in the crude, but I'm still leaving open the likelihood that we'll go back down and test those lows again down around $33."

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries plans to meet Sunday in Vienna, and some of the group's leaders have said a production cut is likely.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari was quoted by the official IRNA news agency Sunday saying OPEC members have "almost" completely complied with the 4.2 million barrels a day of output quota reductions announced since September.

Also on Monday, Iraq's oil minister said crude oil prices are not "profitable and fair" for oil producing countries and should be increased.

Hussain al-Shahristani, speaking to the private Sharqiyah television station, said OPEC members are working to control prices to "inch them up." He said Iraq will have to review its budget in mid-2009 if oil prices continue to stay below $50 per barrel.

After cutting production for months, it finally appeared last week that OPEC had regained its footing. Domestic producers are also slashing production and on Friday, Baker Hughes reported that the number of oil and gas rigs in North America fell for the seventh straight week.

That was two days after the government said that U.S. crude inventories fell for a second week in three, halting a trend over the previous six weeks that saw inventories jump more than 30 million barrels.

Some analysts expect OPEC to announce a cut of at least 500,000 barrels a day, though the group's biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, hasn't yet commented on the possibility of further output reductions.

Ritterbusch said it's likely that Saudi Arabia will put more of an emphasis on compliance with previous production cuts rather than focusing on new reductions.

"I think that took a little steam out of the OPEC factor as a bullish influence," he said.

Oil has traded near $40 a barrel since December after plummeting from $147 in July as crude demand fell amid the worst global recession in decades. Prices rose Friday even as the Labor Department said America's unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983.

Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., said the crude market is giving OPEC its due respect by pricing in another production cut.

"But after that we will still need to see demand kick in to a level that will start eating into supply," Flynn wrote in his morning energy report.

In London, Brent prices fell 72 cents to settle at $44.13 on the ICE Futures exchange.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for April delivery rose less than a penny to $1.3351 a gallon, while heating oil fell 1.4 cents to $1.2294 a gallon. Natural gas for April delivery lost 8 cents to $3.865 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Hmmm. I feel sooo bad for them, just like they felt bad for the consumer and said prices were unfair when oil reacheed $147 a barrel.

**** em. They loved it at 147. I like it at 40. Either way, I'll never use as much of it as I used too, again.

This

Ha ha, them saying the price isn't "fair" is fuggin' hilarious.

I'm reveling in this almost as much as when CP left.

Yep, it was fair to screw the rest of the world though.

Crude up $1.81 (3.82%) at $49.16 today, highest in three months, IIRC.

Crude trading above $50 right now (+8.08% @ $52.03). Approaching $2.00/gallon for national retail average.

damnit here we go again. No one will be spending gas, no one is buying shit, wow

This massive jump has little to do with S&D. It has to do with a plummeting dollar.

Greed, baby! GREEEEED!

Crude up 8.7% at $52.60

You omitted something.

Around here they are saying 2.25\gal or so by Memorial Day.

Around here it's already over that.

Gasoline expected to remain cheap this summer.

WASHINGTON – Despite the dismal economy, motorists may want to take to the road this summer. The federal government says gasoline prices are expected to stay relatively low.

The Energy Information Administration on Tuesday projected regular-grade gasoline to average $2.23 a gallon during the April-through-September driving season. The monthly average is likely to peak at $2.30 a gallon. That's still a bargain compared to last summer, when gasoline cost an average of $3.81 a gallon and soared for a time past $4.

The report also said U.S. crude oil production declined by 110,000 barrels a day last year because of Gulf Coast hurricanes, but should rebound by an additional 440,000 barrels to 5.4 million barrels a day this year, the first increase in domestic production since 1991.

In recent weeks gas prices have edged higher from their lows in December. Last week gasoline average $2.05 a gallon. The energy agency attributed the increases to slightly higher crude oil costs and refiners trying to recoup some profits.

The EIA report projects crude oil prices to average $53 a barrel this year, but to increase by about $10 a barrel in 2010. But it said a stronger-than-expected economic recovery, lower global production or "more aggressive action to cut production" by the OPEC oil cartel "could lead to a faster and stronger rise in oil prices."

Despite the drop in crude prices as well as cheaper gasoline, U.S. consumption of petroleum products, mainly gasoline and diesel, is forecast to decline for a second year in a row because of the economic downturn, the report said.

It said consumption declined by 6.1 percent last year, compared with 2007, in part because of the high cost of fuel in the first half of the year, and is expected to drop another 2.2 percent this year, or by 430,000 barrels a day. An expected economic upturn will increase demand in 2010 by 1.4 percent, the report said.

There should be plenty of gasoline available this summer. Refinery production is projected to increase by about 240,000 barrels a day compared with last summer. Total gasoline stocks as of April 1 were slightly less than last year at this time, but higher than the five-year average.

More ethanol will be blended with gasoline this year, as required by law. The EIA said an average of 670,000 barrels a day of ethanol to be blended, compared to 635,000 barrels a day last summer.

Still, the EIA said the growth of ethanol plant capacity will slow dramatically in 2009 as lower gasoline prices depress profits in ethanol production and the constraints in the financial markets curtail plant construction plans.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090414/...ummer_gasoline

Sounds good to me. $2.50 a gallon this summer would be awesome. I, for one will take advantage of it and do some road tripping, camping, etc. It climbs over that though, and I'm going back into conservation mode. Last summer really made me evaluate what I was willing to pay for the stuff. It goes over that amount and I'll use it as sparingly as possible.

I can live with 2.50 I guess, but it still kinda sucks. I'm still going to conserve in my regular driving, but a vacation is not out of the question this summer.

Splat!

Crude closes at $45.88, down $4.45 or 8.84%

Looks like it followed the Dow today, dropped 289pts

Did it follow the DOW, or did the DOW follow the drop in oil?

Crude surging today. Up 2.25% at $55.05

It can just stop that shit right now.

I wouldn't be surprised to see crude reach $70 before the end of summer.

Why is the price of oil up if supplies are at a 19 year high? What is going on in the market that people are buying now? I just dont see it...

There is not probably a legit answer.. If they can raise it, they will..

There's a lot more to it than just crude supply.

Who is they?

Greed, baby. GREED!

I installed a satellite system at a refinery the other day. It was a loud, smelly, filthy dirty place. I wouldn't want to work there.

Here's some cheerful news. Gasoline is now $2.13/gallon, which is $1.50 less than it was one year ago.

This.

That's why Congress should outlaw speculators, hedge funds and investment banks in the energy trading markets and cut all this crap out.

Yup, they have to have some spikes to keep from letting down wall street at this point.

Very good, Mr. Chavez.

Speaking of which, did 7-11 dump his ass? Or did they just take the name of the company off their gasoline?

I don't know.

Now up 4.66% to $56.35. Dang...

I wouldn't be surprised to see 5 dollar corn and 1200 dollar gold by the end of summer either.

I don't believe government control of a specific commodity is a good idea for us.

Tell the wizard to quit dumping so many dollars into the game then.

I didnt say the oil commodity should not be traded. I think it was deregulation of the energy market allowing this type of trading that was a bad idea.

And why the hell not? They already control credit, housing, and automobiles, why not go for oil?

OH, that's coming. Believe it.

We tried price controls once before. It, well, wasn't very pretty.