What happened to those "falling gas prices"? I just paid ten cents more per gal than last time

I generally fill up halfway once a week.

they'll drop it a few cents before Labor Day so they can't chat about how cheap gas is now. :eyes:

when last week we were told how that mini-crash/major sell-off in crude oil would cause just as precipitous a fall in gas prices.

I made a sarcastic comment at the time (the headline was "Oil Falls Under $100 on Worries of Lower US Demand" or something) about how the price of gas would be inching towards $5 a gallon on worries of lower oil prices. I guess I was right.

Hmm...

I work in a Title One school in a poor area. The gas is still a good 10 cents less a gallon than in the weathier areas; even the gas at COSTCO!

They need to capture all those vacationers you know....and their money for travel gas.

and don't know why---it made me a few minutes late too. But on the way home, when I usually stop, the gas was 15 cents more than it was in the morning. I don't know what made me stop, just glad I did. And I kept thinking that the price was going to be lower in the afternoon and I would be kicking myself. Go figure.

I wish I had a clue what was going on. Actually I wish the "experts" had a clue what was going on.

I do it on the way to work and on the way home shake my head at the new & improved prices.

hit $3.99/gallon here today.

I will keep in mind that Tuesday mornings are good times, although these days, the rules keep changing on me.

This is just what seems to work best for me, it may be different where you live.....:hi:

And it is interesting, because here on DU there seem to be a handful of moderate centrist pumps in the nation with dropping prices, while the rest of us see higher prices. Odd.

LOL, great point well made.

i would ask where you're located, because post-disaster price-gouging is a crime that seems to happen very routinely in eastern tennessee and throughout alabama

10cents a gallon is about perfect-- it's prob. higher than it should be but not enough for you to be able to file a claim

some of these scumbags doubled or tripled the price of gas during katrina, although price-gouging laws were enforced in louisiana, i didn't see actual gouging once i actually made it home...but it was tough sledding at times, considering all the wild stories being told up where the disaster didn't even happen about why somehow, strangely, they had to raise the price during a disaster

can you tell i hate a disaster opportunist and a price-gouger?

It swings by about $.30 in a 5 mile radius of me. I am seeing $3.99-$4.29... most at $4.09

while the speculation brought the price per barrel up the prices at the pump went up within hours the drop of price per barrel takes weeks/months to drop, price gouging.

Our town has maybe five gas stations, so there are no deals.

And my car gets 14mpg.

Sonoman

I paid $4.19 last week.

Go figure. It makes sense to keep you tank filled twice a week just to dollar cost average.

I think it is the first time it's been over $4 here in 3 years.

Price Stickiness is a concept where prices changes are delayed even when the underlying cost have changed. In the case of oil, no wants to take a lost, so firms price the gasoline they sell, at the price of profit over the cost of replacement gasoline. i.e. if the gasoline costs $4 to buy, but new gasoline costs $5 to buy. the price of the oil purchased at $4, will be priced at $5 plus the cost of selling that gasoline, NOT the $4 it cost to boy.

On the other hand, as prices go down, again no one wants to take a lost, so gasoline purchased at $5 a gallon is sold at $5 plus overhead, even if replacement gasoline only costs $4.

For more on Price Stickiness see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_%28economics%29
http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/paradigm/spring2000/articles/wylie-prices.html

In the 1990s, the last time we had a steady decline (I am ignoring the summer 2008 to Spring 2009 fall in oil prices), the general rule of thumb was it took four weeks for a well head price increase to lead to gasoline price increase at your local gasoline dealer, but eight weeks for any price drop to go from the well head to your local gasoline pump.

Thus, any drop in price will take a long time, almost twice as long as any price jump.

Now, the 2008 seems to be different, speculators seems to not only force the price of oil up further then it should have, but also accelerated the drop in price. This is typical of most cases involving speculators, they take something in tight market (And oil has been in the tight market since 2001) and bid it up AND down. US production still is in decline (US production has been in decline since 1970m but even after 40 years of declining production, the US is still the third largest producer of oil, but produces less then 1/2 of the oil used in the US), so is #1 oil producer Russia and while #2 Oil producer (and #1 exporter of oil) Saudi Arabia claims it can increase production, there are indications Arabia oil production has peaked and about to start to decline.

Iraq oil production has increased, but the rest of OPEC has just held it won in oil production (Indonesia, an OPEC Member has ceased being an oil exporter and is not a net importer). It appears Mexico had peaked and has began to decline. The North Sea has been in declined since 1999 (and unlike the US land based wells is NOT expected to last much longer). Norway is the #3 Exporter of oil, Behind Saudi Arabia and Russia and ahead of Iran, United Arab Emirate and Venezuela.

List of oil exporters, producers and users:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922041.html

New oil finds have off-set the decline in older fields, but the amount of oil being found does not even come near to what is being produced or the decline in those older oil fields.

At the same time India and China has increased their demand for oil (in addition to most third world nations) so we have a very tight market. The ability for supply to meet demand is limited, and thus instead of an increase in supply to meet demand, we can expect to see Demand drop to meet Supply. Thus we will continue to see an increase in speculators as they anticipate how far the price of oil will go up before we see massive demand destruction (i.e, people stop driving). Given the American Society that is going to be hard to do, but as the price goes up, demand will drop sooner or later. This is the underlying problem Speculators are exploiting and will continue to do so until someone cracks down on them by regulating the price of oil.

but back up today. Im in N Texas.

time being

http://oil-price.net