Gas prices up

[ankit]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

This is just a classic case of mass hysteria. Some guy in southern Illinois starts a rumour by sending an email to his friends, who send it to their friends, etc. A certain fraction believe the rumour, and rush out to fill their tanks. Gas station operators see the long lines (and maybe got the emails too), so they figure they'd better raise prices. That lends credence to the rumour, so more people panic and rush out to fill up, raising prices still further - and probably emptying some gas station tanks.

Yup same thing happened at my school. The gas station that is across the street called the school up and told the person who answered to spread the word like a wildfire. I tried to stop people from going out and biting into this but when I pulled out of the parking lot I saw a huge line consisting of people from my high school.

[wagonman76]

Guess I should have filled up last night on the way back like I usually do. Im about 400 miles into this tank. I havent seen any drastic increases, just the same BS all summer. Crude goes down, prices start to go down, then they shoot the prices back up to $4 overnight. I think what theyre trying to do is establish a new baseline. At least the other day crude was getting down to almost $100 again, havent checked lately. Crude goes down to $70 and theyll still hold gas at $4. Then when it goes back up to $140 like it was, theyll raise gas to $8 and say thats the reason. At least one thing is for sure, we cant blame the oil producers for keeping the prices up.

[ankit]

Originally Posted by wagonman76

Guess I should have filled up last night on the way back like I usually do. Im about 400 miles into this tank. I havent seen any drastic increases, just the same BS all summer. Crude goes down, prices start to go down, then they shoot the prices back up to $4 overnight. I think what theyre trying to do is establish a new baseline. At least the other day crude was getting down to almost $100 again, havent checked lately. Crude goes down to $70 and theyll still hold gas at $4. Then when it goes back up to $140 like it was, theyll raise gas to $8 and say thats the reason. At least one thing is for sure, we cant blame the oil producers for keeping the prices up.

Who can we blame? My dad was kind of excited about seeing the price almost to two digits ($99.xx) but then when we got the next delivery somehow the company charged us .25 cents more per gallon. There is no way for the gas stations to bring the price down even though the crude price is at a decent spot. Right now, when half of the gas stations in the area are out of fuel, the station is making .09 cents per gallon.

I don't know who exactly is making the money, could you answer that question for me (not being sarcastic)?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by kevlar

What I'd really like to know is, after the storm has passed, and there is little or no damage, do we get a rebate for all the money they "stole" from us? I highly doubt it! I wish I could gouge money out of everyone whenever I MIGHT get hit by a storm...... of course I'd give it back if I found it wasn't needed!

Now how do you get "stole" and "gouged" out of this? It's their gas: they have a right to try to sell it for whatever the market will bear. (It's not like they're located on evacuation routes out of Galveston.) Indeed, if you look at this from a different angle, you see that the ones doing the "gouging" are really all the people who rushed out to fill up when they didn't need to, thinking they were going to take advantage of gas station owners who were slow in raising prices.

Remember the first principle of the successful con man: never try to con an honest person. Instead, find the dishonest ones and convince them that they've got an opportunity to cheat you.

[tjts1]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Now how do you get "stole" and "gouged" out of this? It's their gas: they have a right to try to sell it for whatever the market will bear.

Exactly! Theres no such thing as gauging. Only suckers willing to pay the price.

[instarx]

Yep, I live in the Raleigh area and gas wet up from 3.69 to as high as 4.07 overnight, although i could still find some 3.79 stations. One station asked drivers to only put 10 gallons in their cars because of the gas shortage in the southeast. That's the first I had heard of that.

[instarx]

Originally Posted by azraelswrd

Yeah, hurricane threatening extraction and refining operations in the gulf plus speculators (which have been officially blamed for the oil price inflation) make for higher costings. Prices haven't spiked here in Cali yet but I'm sure we'll feel it soon enough. Regular was $3.85 this morning at my usual.

No, speculators are not the cause of this price hike. And they have not been "officially" blamed for any other price increases anyway - only conjecturally blamed as a convenient scapegoat. (Can't be blaming the weak dollar or the oil companies, can we? That might look bad for the administration).

The price of oil has dropped steadily over the past few days and was under $100/barrel for a while yesterday (Friday). So there is clearly no correlation between the high pump prices today and the price of crude oil today because the price of crude has DROPPED since the price of gas was 3.69, not risen. This is clearly in anticipation of IKE and an opportunity for the oil companies to make a few extra hundred million dollars on that gas already in the ground at stations.

[PA32R]

Wow, what an amazing phenomenon. But it's a warning as to the possibilities when there really is a shortage.

[BlackDeuceCoupe]

Originally Posted by kevlar

What I'd really like to know is, after the storm has passed, and there is little or no damage, do we get a rebate for all the money they "stole" from us?

I ventured out of my cave today (in Arizona)...

Gasoline is still $3.419 @ QT -- $3.339 @ ARCO, if you don't mind coating all your sensors with phosphorus.

[Big Dave]

A lot of it is hysteria.

A lot of it is taxes. Note on the US "temperature" map the colors forentire states tend to be similar. Every state taxes gas and diesel differently.

If New Source Review had not been such a mad-dog government program for the last thirty years the US might have built some refineries away from the Gulf Coast. We'll never know for sure because simply building a refinery anywhere is nearly impossible. So about a third of all hurricanes take out some infrastructure. There is no redundancy anymore so a third of the hurricanes disrupt production/refining and since there is no slack the fear of shortages drives up local prices.

Maybe the hysteria isn't all that hysterical. A forgotten hurricane - Ivan - played hob with the production/refining system a few years back. I think a lot of people know in their gutthat there is no redundancy and look out for #1.