Gasoline at $4 Coming to a Pump Near You, Unfazed by Rising Tab

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=news&sid=afOlUzd30YOo

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Whether it's $50 to fill up your Prius or $130 for the Ford Expedition, $4-a-gallon gasoline is 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 fast as 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 ConocoPhillips, whose refineries from California to New Jersey produce 56 million gallons of gas a day, enough to meet 14 percent of the country's needs. ``Even though the price of gasoline is up, the demand is up,'' he said in an April 12 interview in Houston.

Population gains and U.S. economic growth are causing an increase in fuel purchases, according to Orlando, Florida-based AAA, the nation's largest organization for motorists. The U.S. economy will expand at a 2.4 percent annual pace in the second quarter, up from 1.8 percent in the first three months, according to the median estimate of 74 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Gasoline use is rising almost 5 percent above the five-year average.

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

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

in wages, $4 a gallon gasoline is going to hurt much more, It is taking money somewhere else, and let us not forget that with fuel price increases, goods will increase in price. Perhaps Mr. Pursell, you might want to visit America, beyond your gated community.

i`m looking at a job offer that is 36 miles per day..i can`t find a job in my own town so i have to travel. i either pay the price or wait for something to open up where i live.
the last job i had was 300 miles a week..

Gasoline, the credit card rip off, utilities. Bush knows he is on his way out and could care less, he has done what he set out to do, make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Most Americans, due to the availability of cheap gas, have continued to live further and further away from work. The trend has been accelerating for the last 60 years.

Unfortunately, this trend is further perpetuated by lobbying by car makers and the road lobby. They ensured mass transit in America was cut off at the knees; they were the ones who bought up the street trolley companies and other mass transit firms and junked them, yet we have one of the most extensive road interstates in the world due to their lobbying.

The long-term solution is likely to include people having to relearn to live closer to their places of work and reinvestment in mass transit infrastructure, something that has been woefully neglected. It'll be a slow process of reversing 60 years of the wrong direction.

the effects on the lower wage earners could be catastrophic.

Even the shift in spending patterns from middle earners could cause problems.

Put your money in bio diesel and ethanol. Like it or not there will be big money to be made there.

and import our wheat to eat..

Isn't one of the things Chavez is doing, is to use sugar for bio/ethanol? The enviro-dilemma I see there is that sugar farms in and around the everglades are are creating a problem and a group of environmentalists what that addressed. So sugar is out...

I remember listening to Frankin's show two years ago when he said there needs to be a Manhattan type project for cheap clean energy... At least we would be doing something.. And not robbing peter to pay paul <from oil to bio/eth>

So-called "economic growth" has got everything to do with the smoke and mirrors stock market and little to do with the real world that the non-investor class lives in.

People can get used to and accept it running from the upper $3 and low $4. I don't know why all these people try to lie and say demand went down at $3, I'm glad to see this article pointing out that demand still went up at this mark.

(since energy is not counted)

Could it be that instead of promoting conservation, auto makers are still pumping out those monster Hummers and their gargantuan gas guzzling cousin Slimey Urban Vehicles?

not much competition the oil companies can raise prices to keep profit margins high with much friction from customers.