Well, that certainly didn’t last long, did it?
Oh sure, you can still find stations selling it for $2.98/gallon and I think I saw one place that was only $2.67/gallon, but still… it was just a couple of weeks ago that I paid $1.98/gallon at Costco. Today it was $2.56. By April it’ll be above $3 again there too.
Is it like this everywhere? Why?
Same here in the UK - it went down to £1.03 per litre in places nearby but it’s now £1.10 or higher. I think the retailers have started to lean on the prices a bit deliberately rather than the oil getting more expensive per se.
Q: Does this mean that all those idiots who bought oil / energy investments when they were low last summer & fall are now going to make a mint? I thought the energy sector was dead and had a stake through its heart…
$3.36 at the cheapest place in town this morning. The reasons are simple for SoCal: scheduled refinery maintenance, a fire at a refinery in Torrance, and the change-over to summer-grade fuel means a decrease in supply without a compensatory change in demand.
Mostly $2.25 here, with the lower-end outliers being around $2.15, and the higher priced outliers being about $2.39
Crude prices fell like a stone from sometime last year, until about the last week of January where they bottomed out at about $45/bbl, at which point they started fluctuating and are at about $50/bbl.
Just read in the paper this morning that the U.S. has so much crude that they are about out of places to store it. This is expected to bring gas prices back down again.
$3.75/gal at the station near my house and $3.65 at the one a mile down the road. 
We are in California and also in the semi-boonies so our gas is always pricier than most.
$2.19 here in TN.
Exactly.
The increases mainly reflect normal seasonal adjustments, plus an unusual local incident. Here’s a graphtracking crude oil prices against San Diego gas prices over the past three months. There was a small jump in oil prices in early February, as bump noted, but for the last three weeks they’ve been steady, while gas prices have continued to rise.
Gas prices always rise about this time of year around here, although the Torrance fire means that this year’s climb has been steeper than usual.
Odd.
Every time there is a sharp drop in prices, there is a concordant refinery fire.
The insurance pays for the old refinery, the public gets higher gas prices, the oil industry gets a newer & more modern refinery (less what the insurance paid for the old one).
What a co-inky-dink.
I predict that soon you’ll once again see conservatives talking about how much the President affects gas prices.