Gas Prices Rise

We are still on track for $4 gasoline by Memorial Day. If gasoline inventories have fallen significantly by mid-March, it is a near-cinch. One of my recent OPIS reports also said that investors have gone seriously long on gasoline futures:

Average Gas Price Rises to $3.07

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The national average price for gasoline rose nearly 10 cents over the last three weeks, according to a survey released Sunday.

The average price of regular gasoline on Friday was $3.07 a gallon, mid-grade was $3.19, and premium was $3.30, oil industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said.

Of cities surveyed, the nation’s lowest price was in Cheyenne, Wyo., where a gallon of regular cost $2.77, on average. The highest was in San Francisco at $3.39, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide.

The cost of diesel was also up, with an average national price of $3.48.

I should probably point out that my last fill-up in Scotland (which was about 2 months ago) cost me $7.75 a gallon.

9 thoughts on “Gas Prices Rise”

  1. I drove by a station last week in Malibu posting $4.05 for premium. First time I saw $4 anywhere.

  2. If you last filled up a couple of months ago Robert, you’re in for a shock.

    Gas has gone from about 98p/litre ($7.75/gal) to about 102p/litre ($8.03/gal)

    Partly due to oil rising, and partly due to Robbing Brown’s tax rise.

    Makes me laugh when slightly less worldly aware Americans assume the world will stop turning at $5.00/gal gas.

    Its been $5/gal here for ever and the world still gets out of bed in the morning. We just do it more efficiently.

    Andy

  3. andytk, they say it’s because you have a smaller country. I find that amazing, as if country-size tells you the distance from farm to market or from home to office.

    I agree that we can be much more efficient, and yes we are spoiled.

  4. Currently averaging 153 yen/liter here in my neck of the woods in Japan.

    And it’s making the situation more serious than it looks from the outside. In that vein, the new parliament session that starts in a few days will surely see some heated debate on what to do about the gasoline tax. Already, the combatants have divided themselves into two camps. One says the government must reduce or eliminate the gasoline tax so that people won’t have to spend their food budget on gas. The other says that the tax is necessary to fund road construction and maintenance. The trouble is, both sides are right. This is the Catch-22 situation between fuel taxes and road maintenance that I pointed out before.

    And that highlights another point I made, that just figuring out how to fuel vehicles will not maintain the car culture. You also need to factor in the energy and resources needed to maintain the whole infrastructure. It’s not as easy as everyone thinks.

  5. andytk,

    I wouldn’t be quite so smug. 🙂 A lot of us poor ignorant Yanks are aware that gasoline is more expensive elsewhere.

    It’s all about economic equilibrium, isn’t it? If an economy has developed around relatively cheap gasoline, then a sudden increase is bound to cause some discomfort, at least until some kind of new equilibrium is reached.

    Ask the Venezuelans or Iranians how they feel about their very cheap subsidized gasoline, much cheaper than the US even. Their economies… wages, public transportation systems, automobile fleet, etc… are all built around the equilibrium of sub $1 gasoline. Two dollar per gallon equivalent gasoline might cause partying in the streets of London, but riots in the streets of Tehran.

  6. odograph writes:
    as if country-size tells you the distance from farm to market

    That raises a question in my mind. It is said that in the US on average, food travels over 1000 miles to reach the market. Has food-miles increased in Europe since the EU was formed?

  7. Regarding the food-miles its quite a big issue with the greeenies in the UK.

    I don’t think much has changed since the EU..we used to import from those countries before.

    The major issue is buying apples from New Zealand and crazy things like that. Yes we can grow them in our back yard!

    My family buys the closest food we can. We even grow our own veggies!

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