oil / gasoline price watch

[freebeard]

This isn't the article that says these are going up for auction:

BMW i3 Police Car fleet allegedly sits unused by LAPD

"Cop brakes, cop radiator...."
"Fix the lighter."

[redpoint5]

Hey, at least those i3s have a good reason to sport a black hood. I'd buy one at auction if the price was right.

Any moron should have known the i3 is a terrible squad car. The only reason I can think that LAPD chose it would be bribery.

The Bolt would probably make a decent squad car since the battery should last a standard shift, assuming the driver's seat was replaced with something comfortable for the average cop.

[ksa8907]

Wait, didn't they recently approve oil exports? Or was it LNG exports?

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=33372

Record high export levels for crude may help explain it.

[steddie]

G'day all, Gas prices went up here in New Zealand, its nearly the price of gold, i went on a road trip and had to pay $7.83 per us gallon, down on the south island it was $8.21 per us gallon, we wish it was as cheap as in the us at only $2 or $3 dollar a gallon.
Greetings,
Eddie.

[MetroMPG]

Gasoline in the US & Canada has passed fresh multi-year highs in the past few days:



2 year highs in the States; 3 years in Canada.

Oh, and I saw something yesterday that I haven't seen for YEARS:



A gas station employee changing the prices by hand!! At a station in a village near here.

[MetroMPG]

Oil futures on Wednesday marked their highest finish since late 2014, as rising tensions in the Middle East continued to feed concerns over potential supply disruptions in the region.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oi...ons-2018-04-11

[redpoint5]

Darin- Do you have any graphs that overlay historic gasoline prices with historic forum activity? I'd like to visualize the relationship as that seems very interesting.

Then the question would be, do fuel prices drive forum activity, or does forum activity drive fuel prices?

[MetroMPG]

Up until 2014, a graph would have shown a really tight relationship with forum traffic/activity and U.S. gasoline prices. (To a lesser extent with Canadian prices -- those 2 countries make up the majority of visitors.)

In 2014, forum activity fell off a cliff when the bottom fell out of the oil market and average US gas prices tumbled below $3, ultimately heading under $2/gal by early 2016. Since hitting that 2016 low, gas/oil prices have been gradually increasing, but forum activity has not followed.

Unfortunately, it didn't even stabilize at that point.

Despite oil & gas prices hitting multi-year highs recently, last month was our slowest ever -- half of what it was when gas prices hit the 2016 low. On a month-over-month basis, traffic has fallen gradually (with a few minor jumps) despite increasing oil/gas pricing.

That's why I wondered if people had noticed any rising concern among "the normies" yet, as a result of prices hitting recent highs.

I read an analysis recently that might explain it: normies don't generally change their behavior when faced with gradually increasing fuel prices; they tend to only respond to spikes/shocks.

[MetroMPG]

FYI: I also keep an eye on CleanMPG and Fuelly (formerly GasSavers). Their activity trends appear even worse than ours.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

FYI: I also keep an eye on CleanMPG and Fuelly (formerly GasSavers). Their activity trends appear even worse than ours.

That'll all change this summer...as things are currently heading.