Out of gas

[fallensaviour]

I.m paying $1.43 a litre here in canada which equals $5.40 a gallon so you guys are getting a pretty good deal at $3.99 if you ask me...

[ScottA]

I'm not surprised prices went up (although I didn't figure this much). I am surprised people paniced and stations are out. Alabama Gov. gave the same speech about gouging. Told people flat out if you do it you're going to jail.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Like Ramsey said, here in KY it's around $3.95-$3.99. Early last week it was down to $3.52 in my area. Early Friday morning local news outlets said gas was going to go up at least a dollar, with some stations already going up to $4.69. That never happened here, but it did jump from $3.75 (it had already risen during the course of the week) to $3.99. Friday night several stations were closed, and by end of night all were out of 87 octane.

Chris

[mitchedwards]

Well oil is under $100 a barrel now. The refineries did not suffer and major damage, so hopefully everything will get back to normal soon.

What makes me mad is the folks that ramp up the fear that there will be no gas, then jack the prices.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I'm reminded of the sage wisdom of Mr. Jerry Reed, who recently left us (and recently became Mitch's avatar):

The Crude Oil Blues

Now listen people,
Let me tell you some news,

I sing a song
Called the Crude Oil Blues

We're low on heating oil
And we're low on gas,

And I'm so cold
I'm about to freeze my...self.

We got the crude oil blues.

Chris

[spiderrogue]

oddly enough, this is the lowest it's been in months..well it was about 2 or so weeks ago....it was around 330 a gallon or so..now it's back up to 355 or so..but still a lot cheaper than it's been....

[Donkey Hoatie]

Filled up last Thursday at 3.74 in the Chicago northern suburbs. Today it was at 4.35.

I usually don't fill up, but I was anticipating going on a trip. I'll usually buy only 5 or 6 gallons at a time. By not adding the extra weight to your car in the form of a full tank, you can save on your gas mileage. In some cases, I was saving almost 10%. Of course, you have to fill up more often, but since I only put about 50 miles on my car every week, it doesn't affect me too much.

[mitchedwards]

Just checked the market and oil is down to $91.0 a barrel and dropping

[toys2cool]

Just checked the market and oil is down to $91.0 a barrel and dropping

Good !! keep dropping baby! man i miss the days of it being $2 something a gallon a year ago

[megocrazy]

Gas Speculators are killing our Wallets.

And that's exactly what it is. Speculation. They raise the price before anything actually happens. It's ridiculous. A family member has owned a small gas station for well over 30 years. It was his fathers before that. The usual way of paying for a drop off is a revolving line of credit. They drop it, you pay for it in x amount of days, you sell it, and then it starts all over. A few weeks ago the price went above his normal credit limit for a normal amount and because so many stations are defaulting because the price fluctuations are so great, that what you pay per gallon this week may be more than the actual selling price next week they wouldn't increase his limit, even though he hasn't had any payment issues ever. If he wanted a filled tank he needed to wait for the truck to get there and have a bank check or cash waiting for the difference. Many smaller stations are caught with gas they paid more for than what the current selling price in the area is. They are forced to sell at a loss if they want to compete. Larger stations turnover a fill quicker so they're not as affected. All caused because incorrect speculation makes the prices swing higher or lower in drastic amounts rather than the normal pace of fluctuation. It's simply insane.

[megocrazy]

Just checked the market and oil is down to $91.0 a barrel and dropping

Exactly! Nothing happened to the oil production so the speculation that raised the price 40 cents to $1.00 in the last couple of days was complete crap. We didn't see any storm effects here in the NorthEast and we saw a 20 cent swing in 12 hours. Any station that filled up at the higher price in the last couple of days is screwed if they can't sell it all in the next 24 hours because everyone will be slashing their prices after seeing the crude oil prices drop. They'll lose money if they don't sell out.

[Adam West]

There is a supply problem. 25% of the nation's oil refineries were shut down due to the hurricane and although no major damage, it will take a few weeks to get them back up.

We have a local chain here called Sheetz which is completely out of gas because they rely 100% on the pipeline that was shut down.

With oil at $90 a barrel and the refineries running at full steam, gas prices would be around $3.00 a gallon. This is what we'll see in the next month if oil prices stay down.