BIBE-PJ GASOLINE GAME

[SHANEA]

Ok, when will gasoline prices reach $4.00 or greater at the BIBE PJ gasoline station - regular unleaded.  

SHANEA - Wednesday May 23rd 2007.

[bdann]

Friday June 22. (ever the optimist)

[SHANEA]

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/business/stories/other/04/24/24gasoline.html

4 a gallon? Some forecasters see it coming
With demand rising and supplies at lower levels, experts think cost of gasoline might soar to new heights.
By Joe Carroll
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Whether it will cost you $50 to fill up a Prius hybrid or $130 for a Ford Expedition sport-utility vehicle, $4-a-gallon gasoline could be coming to a pump near you.

Fuel prices are rising at a pace not seen since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita knocked out a third of the U.S. oil refining industry in 2005. Gasoline consumption is climbing twice as quickly as it did last year and will accelerate when summer travel begins late next month.

"What we're surprised by is the increased demand," said James Mulva, chief executive officer at Houston-based ConocoPhillips, whose refineries produce 56 million gallons of gas a day, enough to meet 14 percent of the country's need.

"Even though the price of gasoline is up, the demand is up," he said.

Population gains and economic growth are causing an increase in fuel purchases, according to the AAA motor club. With experts saying the economy is picking up, gasoline use is rising almost 5 percent above the five-year average.

Americans are resigned to higher prices, said David Pursell, a principal with consulting firm Pickering Energy Partners Inc. in Houston.

"Last year, we had pump prices well over $3 for the summer, and gasoline demand was up," Pursell said. "Would $4 gasoline cause demand contraction? I think it will, but I also thought $3 gasoline would."

Gasoline inventories, measured by the days of demand they will cover, are at the lowest level in two decades for this time of year because of refinery fires, power failures and maintenance work that oil companies failed to complete last year.

Pump prices in the United States could increase to $4 a gallon from a nationwide average of $2.87 today, especially if hurricanes threaten Gulf of Mexico refineries, said Peter Beutel, an analyst at research firm Cameron Hanover.

"Hurricanes are always the huge wild card," Beutel said. "We're all praying for a year like 2006 rather than 2005."

But forecasters have predicted that the hurricane season will be active, with as many as nine tropical storms reaching hurricane force. AccuWeather.com predicts that some of the storms will strike the Gulf Coast.

The increase in fuel costs threatens to quicken inflation and restrain consumer spending. An appreciation to $4 a gallon would add more than $10 to the cost of filling the 12-gallon tank of a Toyota Prius. The owner of an Expedition, a Ford sport-utility vehicle with a 34-gallon capacity, would face an increase of almost $40.

Many Americans have no choice but to drive more, said Christopher Knittel, an economist at the University of California in Davis who studies fuel consumption.

"We live farther from our jobs than we did in the 1970s, and with the rise of dual-income households, we now have two people who drive those distances every day," Knittel said.

Consumers also do more driving for activities such as taking children to soccer practice that they are unlikely to quit, he said.

"Just as we used to think $3 a gallon was an impenetrable barrier, now it's $4," said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland's business school. Gasoline prices are likely to reach $3.50, Morici said, and any event that disrupts crude supplies might push it to $4.

Pump prices rose 33 percent in the past 11 weeks, the fastest rate of gain since a six-week, 34 percent rally led to the record average of $3.07 in September 2005, Energy Department data show.

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said last week that the national average pump price could break the record this summer. Although his agency's official forecast is for gasoline to peak next month at about where it is today, hurricanes, refinery closures or crude oil supply cuts could send prices higher, he said.

Higher prices are "a legitimate worry," Bodman said. "We have trouble spots all over the world" that could boost crude oil prices. We're in a very tight situation."

Storage tanks at U.S. refineries, terminals and ports hold enough gasoline to cover almost 22 days of domestic demand, 8.2 percent less than the five-year average and the lowest for this time of year since the 1980s, Energy Department figures show.

Gas stations owned by Valero Energy Corp. in Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo., ran dry after a Feb. 16 explosion, and fire shut the company's McKee refinery in Sunray, which is in the Texas Panhandle. A day earlier, a blaze at an Exxon Mobil Corp. plant in Nanticoke, Ontario, slashed output, resulting in shortages and higher prices across eastern Canada.

The McKee shutdown strained supplies so much that ConocoPhillips postponed maintenance at its Borger refinery north of Amarillo to prevent shortages in the region.

"Refineries are becoming more complex," Mulva said. "What we're finding is it's more difficult keeping reliability up with more sophisticated pieces of equipment that are highly integrated."

"Prices will depend entirely on whether we have a couple of refineries blow up," said Philip Verleger, who runs a consulting firm in Newport Beach, Calif. "It's almost impossible we'll get to $4 a gallon if all the refineries run well this summer. But if something happens and there are problems, then anything's possible."
 

[SHANEA]

Monday May 14th 2007
BIBE PJ - $3.51 :shock:
Stillwell - $2.99
Study Butte Mall - $3.24



Just call me Trilby Lumberg...

[SHANEA]

SIDEBAR:  Where I live at, at one station it jumped seven cents over night.  Now, $2.95

Front page      
May 14, 2007, 4:44PM
Gasoline prices hit record high at pump
By JOHN WILEN
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Gasoline prices hit a new record at the pump today, but gas futures prices fell on concerns that $3 gas will crimp demand.

Oil prices, meanwhile, rose on reports of refinery problems in the U.S. and abroad.

The average national price of a gallon of gas hit $3.073 today, up almost a penny from Sunday's also record-setting price, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gasoline is now well above the previous record of $3.057, set on Sept. 5, 2005, soon after Hurricane Katrina.

But gasoline futures for June delivery fell 5.09 cents to settle at $2.3012 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose 9 cents to settle at $62.46 a barrel on the Nymex.

Heating oil futures fell 1.55 cents to settle at $1.8668 per gallon on the Nymex, while natural gas prices gained 5.3 cents to settle at $7.952 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Brent crude for June settled unchanged at $66.83 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Chip Hodge, energy portfolio manager at John Hancock Financial Securities, in Boston, thinks gasoline futures traders may be reacting psychologically to the fact that pump prices are setting new records.

"You just get a feeling that $3 a gallon. ... It's got to have an impact from a demand standpoint," Hodge said. "So, maybe there's a little bit of a selloff on those pressures."

While oil prices rose on the day, they settled well off their earlier highs on news that Chevron Corp. plans to restart a 42,000 barrels-per-day Nigerian oil facility, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.

"There was good news out of Nigeria after a lot of bad news," Flynn said. "They're pumping oil again."

But that good news was tempered by new reports of refinery outages, including a fire at a large Preem facility in Sweden, and a quickly resolved problem at a Valero Energy Corp. refinery in Texas last week.

"Any refinery problems anywhere on the globe now adds to concerns" that gasoline supplies won't be adequate to meet peak summer driving demand, Flynn said.

The summer driving season begins in two weeks, on Memorial Day weekend. The government reported that gasoline inventories rose slightly last week, but remain low by historical standards.

"Tightness in the U.S. gasoline situation will continue to drive the market ... because the summer driving season is right around the corner," said Victor Shum, energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "There's not a lot of time for refineries to catch up with demand."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4802541.html

[bdann]

I'm just curious, how high is too high?  Meaning, how expensive will gas have to get for us to stop driving so much or start driving fuel efficient vehicles?  $4, $10?  

I'm not sure myself.  I think $4/gallon wouldn't stop me from driving to Big Bend as long as I was splitting gas with someone else.  $5/gallon?  maybe so, but then again...find a third person to chip in...not so bad.

[bdann]

Article from the Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051507dnbusgasprices.3656fe1.html

Drivers have yet to change habits

Using just a gallon less a month could shave gas prices


08:33 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 15, 2007
By BRENDAN M. CASE / The Dallas Morning News
bcase@dallasnews.com

Want gas prices to fall? Use less.

"If half of American drivers pledged, and followed up on the pledge, to use one gallon less gasoline in the month of June, the market would plunge," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.

Despite high prices, gasoline takes up less of a household’s budget these days, accounting for 3 percent of spending vs. 5 percent in 1981, the U.S. Commerce Department says. "The difference between a perceived tight market and a sloppy or weak market is about 1 percent worth of demand," he explained. Mr. Kloza estimated a 1 percent dip in demand could slice 30 cents to 50 cents off wholesale gasoline prices.

Gas prices have climbed the last three months and now top $3 a gallon at some local stations. That's putting pressure on household budgets as Americans head into the summer vacation driving season.

"I feel it because I commute from Seagoville to Frisco," said Tamika Morris, 29, as she filled up her Kia Optima on Monday. "I'm spending a lot more," she said, estimating her monthly gas tab has jumped to $140 from $100 early this year.

In fact, motorists are spending less – on an inflation-adjusted basis – than they did in March 1981, when prices reached a record high.

Also as a percent of household spending, gas is a better deal now than then.

Gasoline and oil purchases accounted for something more than 3 percent of spending in 2005 and 2006 – down from the high of 5 percent in 1981, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

The proportion was also in the 3 percent range through the '60s and most of the '70s, before actually drifting below that mark in the mid-1980s and early '90s, as real prices dropped.

The blip back up hasn't curtailed purchases.

"Consumers are demanding more, and they're willing to pay for it," said Peyton Feltus, an energy expert in Dallas. "I know consumers won't like to hear that. But the price is not high enough to throttle demand."

To be sure, this doesn't take the sting out of standing at the pump as the numbers click higher. Money spent on gasoline means less for children's shoes – or, more likely, dinners out. Stores cited rising gas prices as one reason for April's falling retail sales, an unhappy development for an economy fueled by consumer spending.

And it's not like it's just one individual's usage that's pushing up prices. The cost of oil, which accounts for about half the price of gasoline, has been affected by burgeoning demand from developing countries such as China and India – not to mention political concerns in such oil-rich countries as Iran and Nigeria.

Closer to home, refinery glitches have pushed up prices.

But underlying the oil market's daily ups and downs is American consumers' huge and growing appetite for fuel. Gasoline use has risen steadily this decade, by an annual average of 1.6 percent between 2002 and 2006, according to the Department of Energy.

On a per-capita basis, the average American used nearly 9 percent more gasoline in 2005 than in 1970 – before the oil shocks and gas lines of 1973 and 1979.

The United States, with 5 percent of the world's population, uses up to a quarter of the world's annual oil output. So what Americans do counts.

"We're the big energy junkie, not China and India," Mr. Feltus said.

Up 34% since January
In Dallas, gasoline averages nearly $2.91 a gallon, according to the Oil Price Information Service. That's 34 percent more than the $2.17 you were paying at the beginning of this year.

Nationally, prices are even higher, at $3.07 a gallon, and analysts reckon they will stay up most of the summer. Gasoline could approach the inflation-adjusted high of over $3.20 seen in March 1981, they say.

How can individual motorists lower their gas consumption?

One way is to buy a more efficient vehicle. A Toyota Prius averages 55 miles per gallon, compared with a Chevrolet Suburban's 17. Don't like buying foreign? A Pontiac Vibe with an automatic transmission gets a combined average of 31 miles per gallon.

Of course, not everyone can go out and buy a new car. And many prefer sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, even if they consume more gas.

For them, Uncle Sam has other tips:

•Slow down. Speed is expensive. Each five miles per hour you drive over 60 is like adding 20 cents per gallon of gas because of lower fuel efficiency, says the government Web site www.fueleconomy.gov.

•Drive sensibly. Rapid acceleration and braking lower gas mileage.

•Remove excess weight. Do you really need to haul those golf clubs everywhere you go when you know you never get time to play?

•Avoid excessive idling, which gets zero miles per gallon. Cruise control can save gas, and the overdrive gear cuts down on gas usage.

•Maintain your vehicle. A $200 tune-up can improve gas mileage by an average of 4 percent, according to the government's fuel economy Web site. Replacing a clogged air filter ($25 or less) can boost mileage by up to 10 percent. And keeping tires properly inflated (free) means both lower gas mileage and increased safety.

•Plan and combine trips, and carpool to work. Going to the supermarket once a week instead of twice (with a third trip to pick up the newspaper you forgot) burns up less gas. And more than 30 years after the first oil crises, only 8 percent of American commuters deign to double up, according to a 2005 poll.

So will today's prices spur the conservation needed to cut overall demand, sending the cost back down?

Don't bet on it, said Mr. Kloza.

"No one has the political gumption to be straight with the American public and tell them that the answer lies in simple sacrifice," he said.

Affordable addiction
The consequences of our extravagance go beyond our wallets. The world's supply of oil is not inexhaustible. Moreover, higher oil prices translate into fatter profits for oil-rich nations, some of which have weapons trained on America's soldiers or their allies.

But, truth is, at current price levels, American motorists can afford their gas addiction.

A look at total number of miles traveled by vehicles in the United States shows a jump of nearly 13 percent between the first three months of 2000 and the corresponding period this year, according to the Federal Highway Administration. But overall fuel efficiency has barely budged.

"What's really driven gasoline demand is miles traveled," said Tancred Lidderdale, an economist with the federal government's Energy Information Administration. "Part of that is the increasing number of drivers, but the other part of it is increasing income, suburbanization," meaning we're moving farther from work and we can afford the drive.

Higher incomes also translate into the freedom to buy a sport utility vehicle or a pickup truck, even if they consume more gas.

"Energy consumption per capita, if we look internationally, is highly related to income," said Stephen Brown, director of energy economics at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "U.S. income is quite a bit higher now than it was in the 1970s."

At the same time, prices are relatively low here. Gas is far cheaper than in Europe, where fuel taxes are much higher. The Brits currently pay about $7 per gallon, according to their country's Automobile Association.

In other words, American motorists are still getting a bargain on gas – which helps explain why they keep buying more.

So the next time you're at the pump, staring as the stomach-clenching numbers click past, try telling yourself you're just loading up on the red light special – at a price you helped create.

[presidio]

I'm just curious, how high is too high?  Meaning, how expensive will gas have to get for us to stop driving so much or start driving fuel efficient vehicles?  $4, $10?

For folks who are not at or below the poverty line, it won't be so much the price as the availability. Now, price and availability are directly related, but if the tank is dry at the station, it doesn't matter what the price is. Alternatively, if you HAVE to drive, it doesn't matter what the price is either. How else are you going to accomplish your mission/goal/trip?

If you are at, below, or barely above the poverty line, you already are severely impacted by what is going on.

There are several factors that play into this.

a) Gas prices are shocking...but only for a while. You get used to them; what else can you do unless you are willing to find an alternative form of transportation? Remember when everyone was gasping for breath over $2.50 gas? Now, that old, high, price seems quite reasonable given that it is hitting $3.50. You'd pay $2.50 in a blink, if you could find that price. You adjusted, you became inured.

b) Unlike the gas 'crisis' of the early 1970s, the response to the current situation is quite different. In the 70s, there was much manipulation of the market and rationing, after a fashion; gas stations were closed at times and there were schemes based on day of week and license plate number to limit demand. Now, market forces are the principal effect at work and the political response is little more than hand-wringing and worry about not being re-elected due to economic impacts legislators are loath to touch because that produces an immediate negative effect on their ratings (when they do what really needs to be done). Social Security is the third rail of economic policy; energy is becoming the fourth rail.

c) As is apparent from even the briefest news, drivers like to complain much and reduce consumption not at all. In fact, consumption has been rising at record rates, along with the price....market forces.

There are several solutions that can be undertaken:
1) Drive less
2) Drive more efficiently
3) Ride a bike
4) Walk
5) Buy a trendy green vehicle that has significant hidden energy costs in the manufacturing process (but you don't see them, so you can feel good driving one).

However, none of the above are going to make any realistic dent in the problem. The US is an energy-hungry nation. Whether that fact is bad or good is open to debate. It partially is what has created a great, powerful, advanced nation (if at times poorly led and directed).

It was helped along by favorable geographic location, generally favorable climate, innovative people, a political system that encourages enterprise and, for the most part, is hands off (though, sadly, that has changed a lot in the last 6 years). In no small part, it reflects the promise of an open society that benefits from its immigrant heritage (though that is sort of hard to see these days with all the teeth gnashing about immigration). People want to come here precisely for the reasons we all stay here and, consequently, we get some of the brightest and best minds from all over the planet. We are a nation where, to borrow a tired recruiting slogan, you truly can 'be all you can be'.

It is why we have the things we do rather than living in a mud hut, scratching the ground with a pointed stick, and cooking your dinner over whatever variety of animal dung is found in the area, like much of the rest of the world.

It precisely is because of our success (and some would say, excess) that many of those currently scratching the ground with pointed sticks have finally realized that they don't have to do that any longer either. Ergo, energy consumption world-wide has shot through the roof.

There is a solution at hand and I only recently heard one political candidate (don't remember which one...they all run together) actually use the phraseology (I'll get there in a minute).

The energy situation already is at a stage I would consider to be a national emergency. Without strong and forthright leadership, and some belt-tightening by citizens, it only will get worse. As noted above, so far the political response has been lackluster. The announcement yesterday that the president has ordered a 20% improvement in fuel economy within 10 years isn't even a bandaid, though it makes headlines.

Without getting into political or moral debates, we already have an historical example of solving serious problems. That would be the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb in WWII. From the time that Albert Einstein encouraged President Roosevelt to win that race before someone else did to the time a working device was produced was only six years. More importantly, the transition from pure theory to working device was only three years. This was the stuff of science fiction, but global events made it essential that the theory be made real.

How did they do this? They brought together scientists and basically sequestered them at Los Alamos NM. That lab exists today, along with several others that spun off of that effort. These labs are still in the defense business, but increasingly they also are developing improved technologies for things like batteries.

So, what we need is another Manhattan Project. The first one was singularly focused on its mission. So should be the new one....find, develop, improve, invent new and/or better energy sources/systems. This would produce real benefits of greater impact, and probably in less time, than improving gas mileage 20% over 10 years.

We also have a parallel example in the 'race to the moon'. When a focused, concerted effort is applied to problems/challenges we get impressive results. Why we haven't yet done this with the energy situation is a mystery to me. After all, where is the political risk in this approach? The only economic risk is if we don't do this.

[Texan4life]

Well said Presidio. The station across the street from my apartment said $3.00 this morning :shock:  Throw in the travel season and a couple hurricanes in the Gulf and we could see $4 very soon. What I'm worried about is the price of goods going way up also! Those 18 wheelers carring our milk and bread to the store just keep getting more and more expensive to operate.

[RichardM]

The energy situation already is at a stage I would consider to be a national emergency. Without strong and forthright leadership, and some belt-tightening by citizens, it only will get worse. As noted above, so far the political response has been lackluster. The announcement yesterday that the president has ordered a 20% improvement in fuel economy within 10 years isn't even a bandaid, though it makes headlines.

Without getting into political or moral debates, we already have an historical example of solving serious problems. That would be the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb in WWII. From the time that Albert Einstein encouraged President Roosevelt to win that race before someone else did to the time a working device was produced was only six years. More importantly, the transition from pure theory to working device was only three years. This was the stuff of science fiction, but global events made it essential that the theory be made real.

How did they do this? They brought together scientists and basically sequestered them at Los Alamos NM. That lab exists today, along with several others that spun off of that effort. These labs are still in the defense business, but increasingly they also are developing improved technologies for things like batteries.

So, what we need is another Manhattan Project. The first one was singularly focused on its mission. So should be the new one....find, develop, improve, invent new and/or better energy sources/systems. This would produce real benefits of greater impact, and probably in less time, than improving gas mileage 20% over 10 years.

We also have a parallel example in the 'race to the moon'. When a focused, concerted effort is applied to problems/challenges we get impressive results. Why we haven't yet done this with the energy situation is a mystery to me. After all, where is the political risk in this approach? The only economic risk is if we don't do this.

Problem is, there's no guarantee that any such project would be a success.  And with the failure of the Super Collider project, don't look for many politicians willing to line up to provide the megabucks that any such project would require.  :(

[presidio]

Super Collider project,

The supercollider was in many ways poorly conceived, planned and promoted. There was lots of opposition to the large area and environmental impacts of same if I recall.

The main difference between that project and an energy project is that the former was nice science that likely would have spun off some direct and tangential benefits. In effect, it was a project looking for a reason to exist rather than being constructed to solve a pressing problem (much simplified as it surely was more complicated than that).

In that regard it was more like the moon project...which was a political race wrapped in science that ushered in continuing technological advances, which likely would have taken far longer without the jumpstart of space flight. Despite the politics, the moon program was a worthy venture...whether or not people should be riding the rocket is still debated...but it is inherent in our nature to explore directly, not by robot and camera, if there's any way at all we can go on the ride.

In a perverse way, the success of the space program has contributed in no small way to the exponential increase in energy consumption due to all the neat things we can dream and produce...all of which require a source of power; and most power is traced back to oil as the root means of producing it.

Conversely, an energy project is needed to address huge, known issues that presently have no known economical, or even practical, solution. This puts it in the category of the Manhattan Project, which was addressing a looming, real threat on the basis of theory and limited real knowledge. This is not a task that requires large land areas, in fact it is unlikely that any new facililties would be necessary at all. Its greatest benefit would be to get all the people working on it in the same room (more below about that).

National security issues change the playing field and, to repeat myself, energy independence IS a national security problem. If we don't have to rely on tenuous sources of energy, then we don't have to go inserting ourselves in places we'd rather not be. However, this does not mean we should be isolationist. We need to solve our problems at home before we try to solve everyone else's. Energy independence would change the international playing field in so many arenas we probably couldn't even articulate half of them before they occurred.

don't look for many politicians willing to line up to provide the megabucks that any such project would require.  :(

Respectfully, I completely disagree. It already has become a hot button issue. As I also earlier indicated, one of the presidential candidates specifically mentioned the need for a Manhattan-type project during the televised debates. It was buried among a lot of other chatter, but I caught it because I have thought this way for a couple of years.

Would it be extraordinarily expense to work on this? Who knows. Probably. The knee-jerk reaction is that any government program is expensive. However, the alternative of doing nothing is unacceptable. Ultimately, if we don't solve this problem in fairly short order, our standard of living is going to take a nosedive. So, in that context, can we afford not to do this?

The biggest advantage would be a consolidation at the national level of all the myriad and disjointed work. That's what the Manhattan Project did best. It got all the expertise and egos in one room, led by a General Groves, who didn't care how important anyone thought they were but cared a lot that they got the job done.

The same principle would apply to almost any significant endeavor...cancer research comes to mind.

Without a unified approach, we have hundreds of people working piecemeal on problems, worrying about what their competition is doing, worrying about not being THE discoverer, worrying about patents and trademarks and profits and royalties they will lose out on if they are not the successful competitor. More importantly, they all hide what they are doing to protect their personal and corporate interests. Imagine that impact on the WWII effort. Synergy is the result of combining efforts. It worked in WWII. It also worked in the space program. Someone is holding a key piece of data they don't know how to use or can't see the importance of,  and someone else could do something with it but they haven't thought of the idea.

It's not a good example because it involved only one inventor, but it does show the result of how things can occur in unimagined ways. Elias Howe, the inventor of the successful sewing machine was stymied in his development because he could not make the prototypes create a lock-stitch. Without it, anything sewn simply unravels if a thread breaks. He invested much time to no avail. Then, one night he dreamed he was being pursued by jungle cannibals and as they raised their spears to finish him off, he noted (probably with the pure clarity of dream states) that all the spears had a hole in the tip. Well, gee, that was the solution to the lock-stitch problem.

There are things that are more important than those kinds of concerns...I almost called them petty but, of course, they aren't in light of how business and politics works these days.

But, the bottom line is that the majority of the nation really doesn't care if John Doe researcher doesn't get a royalty for solving energy or cancer problems. They want the solution, and most everyone would agree it would have been nice to have them yesterday.

The fact that there are not guarantees of success is certainly not a reason to not try. Let's face it, most significant developments have occurred without any guarantee of success. That's why it's called experimentation. However, I have confidence that when you get people to work together rather than in competition, we will see valuable progress make.

[SHANEA]

Gas just zoomed here in East Texas past $3.00.  I filled up on Wed night at $2.98.  This morning it was at $3.09.  Went to Tyler today on business and it was high as $3.15.  

Fortunately with my new job, I have been able to substantially reduce my consumption from a tank a week to a tank a month or longer.

Problem is, there is no "rationale" for the gas price zooming the way it is right now.  Remember, oil prices are controlled by cartels that are illegal in this country.  Not long ago the benchmark for a bbl. of oil was $28.  The market, in my opinion, is being manipulated by our friends in the Middle East, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco-Gulf, etc.  All the big oil companies are raking in windfall profits, and none are investing in new refineries, transportation networks, etc.  Exxon-Mobil is busy buying back all it's stock.  Some say that the market is too big to be controlled.  I disagree.  But, then again I'm naive and I like a good conspiracy theory.  It was Exxon-Mobil one the Grassy Knoll.  

We are being held hostage over gasoline.  Yes, some "reduction" in consumption can happen - combining trips, etc.  But, in the grand scheme of things it's not a dent in it.  You can turn off the A/C, open the windows,  not run the dishwasher, etc. - but none of them make much of a dent.  

The problem with anything based on oil, is that oil has an incredibly low elasticity of demand - basically how responsive is the demand to a change in price?  It all has to do with "substitutes".  Unfortunately, there really isn't much of a substitute for gasoline.  Thus, it's elasticity is low.  On the other hand, Ozarka Water and Aquafena are pretty good substitutes for each other - if you drink bottled water.  If Ozarka increases their price by 25%, then demand for their product is going to decrease as people switch over to the near perfect substitute of Aquafena.  In many respects, gasoline is like insulin to a diabetic.  A diabetic will pay almost any price for their insulin.  The demand remains basically the same regardless of changes to price.   The same goes for those nasty cigarettes, even though the State of Texas put a $1.00 tax per pack on them, the demand has remained relatively the same - as there is not a good substitute for them and they are addictive.

Of course, someone sent me something a while back that will give you pause for thought.

1 liquid gallon = 128 liquid ounces.

Water $1.00 per 16oz or $0.06 per oz or $0.06 * 128oz = $7.68 per gallon.

Coke 16oz bottle $1.25 or $0.08 per oz or $0.08 * 128oz = $10.24 per gallon.

Obsession cologne - $34 for 4 ounces or $8.50 per oz * 128oz = $1088 per gallon.   :shock:

(personally, I've never really figured out the "water market" and why people insist on buying bottled water.  I'm perfectly content with filling up my glass or container from the water faucet at home and drinking that - and it's not even "home filtered".)  To me, selling bottled water is like selling ice to the Eskimos.  Plus, "some" of the bottled water that you purchase is basically tap water that has been filtered - Aquafena for example - not even spring water)

[RichardM]

(personally, I've never really figured out the "water market" and why people insist on buying bottled water.  I'm perfectly content with filling up my glass or container from the water faucet at home and drinking that - and it's not even "home filtered".)  To me, selling bottled water is like selling ice to the Eskimos.  Plus, "some" of the bottled water that you purchase is basically tap water that has been filtered - Aquafena for example - not even spring water)

Of course, you know that Evian spelled backwards is naive.  :)

I'm in Austin for the weekend.  I checked http://austingasprices.com before driving up here and by the time I got here, prices were already up 5-10 cents.  Granted, those prices posted online were a few hours old when I looked at them. :roll:

[SHANEA]

Hope you went to either the Ironworks or Baby Acapulco's for dinner.  Having breakfast in the morning at the original Kerby Lane Cafe.  Talking a hike through the Greenbelt, spend the afternoon at the Showdown on the Drag tossing back a few cold ones, then off to Esther's Follies for an evening performance - then back to the Showdown to catch the music on the back porch.

[RichardM]

Hope you went to either the Ironworks or Baby Acapulco's for dinner.  Having breakfast in the morning at the original Kerby Lane Cafe.  Talking a hike through the Greenbelt, spend the afternoon at the Showdown on the Drag tossing back a few cold ones, then off to Esther's Follies for an evening performance - then back to the Showdown to catch the music on the back porch.

Nope, fought my way through rush hour traffic to Mom & Dad's and had a home-cooked meal with peach cobbler and Blue Bell for dessert.  Tomorrow will be spent watching my nephew play baseball, hitting Zilker Park with my daughter, swimming at the neighborhood pool, trampoline at my nephew's, and whatever else we can think of to keep Jennifer amused.  Sunday will be church, lunch somewhere, than back home.