Gas prices may continue rise in future weeks

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8533441/

U.S. retail gasoline prices may continue to rise for the next few weeks, and then begin to level off in late January or early February, the government’s top energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday.

The federal Energy Information Administration said strong gasoline demand during December may be the biggest factor behind the recent jump in gasoline prices, which climbed 8.9 cents over the past week to a national average of $2.33 a gallon on Monday, up 53 cents from a year ago.

“For now, it does not appear that retail gasoline prices will average below $2 per gallon anytime soon, but barring a bumpy transition to the new gasoline formulations taking place this year or a major supply disruption, nor do we expect to see $3 per gallon either,” the EIA said in a weekly review of the oil market.

Gasoline demand picked up sharply in December after showing very little growth during the autumn when pump prices hit a record $3.07 a gallon in early September when Hurricane Katrina disrupted fuel supplies, the agency said.

profits must be off at big oil. :mad:

Not getting it from home heating bills...Time to get it from the gas pumps again. Bastards.

I love this line: "prices hit a record $3.07 a gallon in early September"

$3.07 a gallon!? It was nearly $3.60 a gallon here during that time period!

Q why do the oil barons continue to ripoff the public?,A because they can.

high prices here we come...

out of the kindess of their hearts after Katrina had a lot to do with rising prices. Stories about how our oil supply was hit hard with the hurricanes was out but not very public.

Plus, if the prices don't go up how will Exxon beat their last earnings report.

What should the price of anything be? Myself I really do not know.

It seems that we should be conserving our precious resources and the only way I know is high prices. I know myself when the price of anything gets too high to suit me I start figuring out how to get by with less and that includes other things other than gas.

If you have a product or service how do you price it? Normally you will price it according what others are selling the same product or service for. Then if you are not selling enough of your product you lower the price or if the public is demanding more than you can produce you raise your price to what others are selling theirs.

What I described is a market. I guess if I were in the oil and gas business I would sell according to the market.

Flame me if you wish but I really do not know what a gallon of gas should sell for.

"Normally you will price it according what others are selling the same product or service for." That is price fixing and is illegal.

So if it is ok to sell gas for the most you can get, how about selling water? Suppose you had the land with the only remaining clean water? How about you had the only clean Air? Suppose someone dies because they can't afford to buy your overpriced food, water and air? Is that ok? Is that just the cost of doing business?

Enron had no problem with faking an energy shortage to get people to pay outrageous prices for energy. Is that ok too? Anything the market will bear is fair game? Even if it is a scam and business just loves the scam.

"The difference between these oil companies and Jesse James is that Jesse James had the personal integrity to wear a mask," Alioto said in an interview."
....

"WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled strong skepticism Tuesday of claims by service station dealers that Shell Oil Co. and Texaco fixed prices by selling gasoline through a pair of Houston-based joint ventures.

Station owners led by a Los Angeles Shell dealer argued that the oil companies violated federal antitrust laws when they combined their refining and marketing businesses into joint ventures, which then charged the same wholesale price for Shell and Texaco-branded fuel.

The result, the dealers contend, was that Shell and Texaco were able to push up pump prices across the country at a time when crude prices were sinking."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/3579334.html

Nobody seems to want to answer that question.

So that's about $1.20 or less in my area (at the official inflation rate of 3%). I was paying $1.00/gallon in January 2000. I am paying $2.35/gallon now.

Edited to add current price.

Just to force people to get out of their cars and into more efficient users of Energy. Yes, I know it will hurt a lot of people BUT PEOPLE WILL NOT REFORM TILL THEIR ARE HURT. As a society we are addicted to Oil, and like any addict we will Scream if our addiction is NOT maintained. Thus the only way to STOP the addiction is for the price to get so high that people just can not afford to keep up their addiction.

As to the poor, they will be hit first but not the worse. Many poor people already as NOT using oil, or if they are using is more efficiently than others. The people who will claim high oil prices will hurt the poor, is the EMPLOYERS of those poor people ho will find they will have to RAISE wages to keep their employees OR find some other way to get them to work (Pushing for higher taxes to subsided mass transit for one, permitting low income housing in suburbia near their stores will be another or even moving back to urban centers). Until such employers have to fight for all of the above just to keep their employees, you will NOT see the needed changes in out society. Once the above changes are implemented you will finally see our society's drop its usage of fuel. Thus the key is the COST OF OIL.

In the 1970s every Mall in Suburban Pittsburgh had a drop in sales during th oil Criss EXCEPT ONE (South Hills Village). It should be noted SOuth Hills Village was on the last Streetcar Line in Pittsburgh at that time (The line had been an old inter-urban between Pittsburgh and Washington PA, the line lost its connection to Washington PA over 20 years earlier but do to suburban growth survived on its own right of way to this day, where it is Pittsburgh LRV line).

The Reason I bring South Hills Village up was one of the reason it was able to increase sales while all the other malls declined was do to people opting for the rail to get to the Mall. At that time you had a small walk to get to the Mall, but I remember taking it will a lot of other riders who then walked to the Mall. Thus people will change PROVIDED THEIR HAVE THE OPTION. The problem is the only way we will have that option in most of the US is if the Price of Gasoline goes to at last $5 a gallon and stays there for a decade or more (unlike the 1970s where it fell in the mid 1970s, back up in 1979 and than fell drastically in the oil glut of the 1980s).

If you were to sell the house that you have owned for 20 years and you were going to sell it. How would you price it? You would do a survey of the neighborhood to see what similar houses to yours are selling for and that is the price that you would put on it.

It would really make no difference what you paid for it or what the inflation rate is. You would sell it for the market price. I really could not call you greedy for getting the market price for it. That is what markets are all about. I doubt very seriously that you would sell below market price, would you???

and they have no hurricans/storms to blame anything on -- the media is just moot - It';; have to get to $3.00 again to make the evening news.

Why do you think people would flame you for not knowing?

There are far worse things in life than not knowing such things.

These prices ain't never going back down...

plus per gallon made us all scream...and...we bought less...now it's a game to see just where they can keep the cost tolerable to the masses, and make record profits too.

The whole thing is nothing more than a test.

Why not, remember Marie Antoinette and the cake thing?