Gas Price Outrage!

[Shapley]

Ours has been wavering between $3.18 and $3.38 for weeks now. They seem to want to raise it, but can't make it stick. If one station raises it before the others follow suit, they see a major shift in customers to the cheaper gas, and there's always one or more that don't follow suit.

The curious thing is the manner of the jump, it always seems to be either $3.18 or $3.38, rarely in between. It's that $0.20 difference that seems to drive the customer shift. They rarely pay much attention to a differnece of a few pennies/gallon, but when they can save $2 to $4 a tankful, they will abandon whatever loyalty they have in favour of the savings, it seems.

As I say that, today's price was $3.26, maybe they're learning...

[Haggis@wk]

url=http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-gas-prices-20120214,0,2776477.story] Gas prices' earliest-ever rise above $3.50 a bad sign for motorists[/url]

$3.38 at Sam's today, $3.48-ish every where else

[Trumpetmaster]

Regular gas yesterday at my local station was $3.82
Premium was $4.07

[Giant Communist Robot]

3.89 at Sam's Club--cheapest in the state. Hawaii average ~4.01.

[jamiebk]

pushing $4.00 here in NorCal. We can find $3.95

[Shapley]

It's dropped slightly here since last week. Now holding steady at $3.21.

I guess they're content to have gotten an increase over the old $3.18 base...

[Haggis@wk]

Why is the administration worrying about soon-to-be $5 gas, given that such European levels are necessary to make Solyndra- and Volt-like projects economically viable?

When soon-to-be energy secretary Steven Chu declared to the Wall Street Journal that “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” and when a soon-to-be President Obama warned that under his agenda cutbacks on domestic coal production would mean “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” the message was clear. The skyrocketing prices that we are now witnessing were once considered as a win-win situation: higher energy prices, less consumption, less global warming, more subsidized wind and solar, high-speed rail, and “millions of green jobs.”

So what’s the problem?

[jamiebk]

$4.10 in NorCal today

[Haggis@wk]

$3.38 at Sam's today, $3.55-ish every where else

[Giant Communist Robot]

$3.95 at Sam's Club yesterday. Tesoro is selling their Hawaiian refinery.

[Trumpetmaster]

Now over $4 a gallon.
they predict my area will see $5 per gallon by May 1st

[Giant Communist Robot]

EIA's Petroleum Balance Sheet suggests gas this week should be up about 2.8% over last year.

[Haggis@wk]

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Resource Curse Works For Putin.

Rising energy prices may be political poison for American politicians, but it’s just the reverse in Russia, filling state coffers and funding new rounds of government giveaways to keep a restless population happy. The FT estimates that Putin needs oil to be at least $80 a barrel to keep this system functioning smoothly.

Fortunately for Putin, oil prices are currently around $120 per barrel, and may go even higher due to the situation with Iran.

Besides relieving pressures for democratic change, high oil prices have another effect as well: Russian foreign policy gets a lot tougher.

This is a great example of the resource curse at work.

Indeed.

[Haggis@wk]

$3.49 at Sam's $3.53-5 elsewhere, the MRHYN is annoyed that oil is down a dollar a barrel and pump prices continue to increase. I never try to explain markets and the fungibility of commodities to her. She still believes the bank keeps her money in a shoebox with her name written on it.

Gawd, if she ever reads even half the thing I write about her here I'd be a dead man!!!

[jamiebk]

$4.40 here in Sonoma County, CA this day...sure went up fast.

[barfle]

Regular is over $3.90 almost everywhere, and some places have it approaching $4.10.

[Trumpetmaster]

sux big time... gas here is now over $4 a gallon for regular... I have seen as high as $4.80 for premium.

[Haggis@wk]

$3.64 at SAM's, $3.76 on the corner. Despite the president's comments today oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down by more than 40 percent compared to 10 years ago. Under the Obama administration, 2010 had the lowest number of onshore leases issued since 1984. The Obama administration held only one offshore lease sale in 2011.

All the increases in drilling he touted in today's speech is happening on private land; an area that Obama can't exert much control over, although he has some and there is no doubt in my mind that he would shut down that production if he could in order to stay on the Green's good side.

All of which leads me to believe the president truly does not want the price of gas to come down regardless of his pronouncements. As President Bush demonstrated when he merely mentioned opening the off shore leases back in 2008, words really matter and the world is paying attention to what the president says.

I noticed that the energy secretary Chu, who previously called for gas prices to rise to the levels of Europe (mostly due to taxes) haas decided that that’s not a good election year strategy and is now telling the senate that he wants prices to drop.

It really is quite simple, until we have an alternative fuel source that will get a Boeing 747 off the ground and move an oil tanker a half-mile from the dock we will remain dependent on oil.



The good news is we have centuries worth of oil and gas in our own backyard.

When you look at the whole picture, it turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S., according to various government reports. Among them:

At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered, according to the government's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.

Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska's North Slope, says the U.S. Geological Survey.

Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS.

As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Then, there's the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming, which according to the USGS contains a stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale — a type of oil released from sedimentary rock after it's heated.

We just need the national will to get at it, the president could cause that to happen with just a few words. Any takers on whether he shall? I'm giving quite good odds!

[Giant Communist Robot]

The good news is we have centuries worth of oil and gas in our own backyard.

Proven reserves are those that are economically recoverable. I think most of that pyramid costs too much at the moment.

[Giant Communist Robot]

It really is quite simple, until we have an alternative fuel source that will get a Boeing 747 off the ground and move an oil tanker a half-mile from the dock we will remain dependent on oil.

Biodiesel can run the diesels in the tanker and those 747 turbines can be re-jetted and run just fine. Algae does have some promise, but the cost and yield remains to be seen. At the moment it looks, well, promising.