Oil To Hit $170 Barrel This Summer - What Will We Be Paying for a Gallon of Gas?

My question is.. what is the price per gallon on $170/barrel crude? Anyone know?

I have yet to figure out what today's $140 barrel will translate out to..

http://www.cnbc.com/id/25386960

Crude oil prices could rise to as high as $170 per barrel in the coming months but are unlikely to hit $200 and should ease towards the end of the year, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said in an interview on Thursday.

"I forecast prices probably between $150-170 during this summer. That will perhaps ease towards the end of the year," he told France 24 television, according to a text of the interview released by the station.

The comments came as crude prices neared $135 per barrel, after rising about 40 percent this year.

Khelil said he doubted prices would climb as high as $200.

"I think that the devaluation of the dollar against the euro, if everything goes as I think it will, will be of the order of perhaps 1-2 percent and this will probably generate an $8 rise in the price of oil," he said.

The head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said it had been clearly established that speculation was affecting markets.

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Of course, CNN is now running a story about how SPECULATION DOES NOT affect oil prices. Right.

One the way up, and on the way down.

The $170 will "perhaps" ease towards the end of the year? What will happen to cause it to "ease"? The worse the stock market does, the higher oil seems to be rising. It's obvious that investors are withdrawing money from stocks and putting it into commodities. Is this trend going to turn around towards the end of the year? Meanwhile, a lot of people will find it hard to find relief from the cold this winter.

:-)

and buy a bike ... and the Purple Heart Trail would soon be trashed with all the styrofoam packaging from fast food restaurants along the way.

And we wouldn´t want to do that to the Purple Heart Trail, would we?

Keep on biking!

That old movie about the race where you got bonus points for running over pedestrians.

My only intention was to motivate you to keep on riding!

Unfortunately some of us are going to be hurting BADLY because we are going to FREEZE this winter.

Here's my theory about oil prices:

Oil companies jack the price up because they can.

When there was the Katrina spike there was no corresponding drop in consumption.

So of course the price didn't go down when that situation was over.

Obviously, a lot of trips can only be done in a car. However, a lot of trips can be done easily on a bike or on foot. I've seen some estimates that about 50% of all car trips are less than two miles.

Suppose people stopped using cars for a tiny fraction of those trips?

Oil companies would have to start playing by the Supply / Demand rules that most other industries have to work with.

My OP wasn't intended to minimize the suffering caused by higher prices, but rather to point out how much better things would be for everybody if people would just use the options that are available to them.

I minimize driving myself - I'm just really :scared: about the upcoming winter. Fuel oil is my only option.

Get off their lazy asses and do something about the speculators! They had hearings this week and 4 big wigs from wall street admitted that speculators are to blame for the huge increase in oil prices. They said that if congress were to end the Enron loophole, and put in some regulations, that the price would drop as much as 50% in 30 to 60 days. I think that Reid and Pelosi need to get some bills on the floor to vote on now, and stop playing politics with the price of oil! The republicans are already blaming the high prices on the democrats for not allowing more drilling, if they don't do something about the speculators so prices will come down, the republicans will be using the drilling issue in the election, and even though it won't help us in the short run, and even though oil companies will sell that oil on the open market, americans will start to listen to the crap about drilling, and that could very will be a huge issue if gas goes up over $5 by labor day!

Reid and Pelosi need to get every member of congress on record with the speculator issue, and any member who doesn't vote to do something about these crooks should have their vote used against them in November!

To many members of congress on both sides have been getting money from oil lobbyists, and that isn't good for the people. The other thing is politics. What it looks like to me is that the leaders of the democratic party think they can use all of the problems we have now politically. They think they can blame it all on the republicans and it will help come November. What I see is the republicans have already started turning the tables, and are now pushing the drilling issue as the problem, and the democrats as the ones who won't let oil companies drill off shore, thus making the democrats the bad guys once again! Things like high oil prices and high food prices are going to be big issues in this election. Americans are already mad at congress, and since the democrats are in charge, they are going to take the heat for the high prices if they don't at least get some bills on the floor and make everyone vote on them. If they can get bills out and force votes, then they can either help bring prices down, which is good for the democrats, or show the public that the democrats tried, but the republicans voted it down, which will be bad for the republicans.

Democrats need to get tough and show the country they can do what is needed, and not back off for fear of making the wrong move!

the reason this will never happen? - because it works and they don't want to have tankers waiting for weeks to unload their oil loads as was the case in the early 70's.

Speculation has driven oil prices up; but oil company manipulation still has a lot to do with what is charged at the pump -- the speculation-induced high price per barrel merely gives the oil companies more cover when they manipulate gas, and especially diesel, prices.