Is regular unleaded gas $2 a gallon where you are, too?

[Xgemina]

87 octane in South Dakota just jumped 20 cents to 1.799 this week. course this only early june, it’ll jump at least another 10 cents just for the tourists in another week, notwithstanding any other reasons to go up…

[Shirley_Ujest]

Hey, Homie, how about a pair of carhart pants? They are incredibly durable and, from what I’ve seen of the nincompoop teenagers running around these here parts, the latest rage. :::thumbing myself:::I even own a pair of carhart insulated coveralls, which all they are missing is the name patch telling everyone I’m “Earl”. I look like such a non-sexual person in them.

In other gas news, Priceline.com is going to start soon a deal with gas stations. Naturally, it will not come to your area ( where ever the hell you are) but it will help out alot for those who are getting it up the butt at the pump.

Cristi- TWO TANKS in your ECONOLINE…eeeek! Maybe you can sell a kidney for the next fill up.

[Persephone]

Cristi- TWO TANKS in your ECONOLINE…eeeek! Maybe you can sell a kidney for the next fill up.

We rarely keep them both full. I think the last time was New Year’s Eve, because we had a couple of family gatherings to attend, and we also had a couple of extra children that weekend. IIRC, filling up both tanks cost somewhere between $30-$40. They’re big tanks, and it was a little cheaper, even on New Year’s Eve 2000, when you know they were trying to rip you.

We’re going to visit my other daughter tonight. She’s got a piano recital. She lives about 45 miles away. Normally we’d take the van, because it’s easier to haul two carseats in there. Yesterday, though, when we saw that the prices were still outrageous, my husband looked at me very sadly (he really loves his van) and said “Do you mind if we take the Corsica tomorrow?”

Probably a good thing that I just bought a house, too. If the gas prices keep going up, I can get a second mortgage, just for gas.

[TaleraRis]

I also heard about the EPA saying that gas should only go up 8 to 10 cents a gallon and here, just since September when I moved here, they’ve gone from $1.40 to 2.14, the most expensive I've seen so far. Even the cheapie gas stations are rocketing over 2 dollars. I was discussing this with Jophiel the other day and he gave the whole supply and demand argument and yes, I believe that might have something to do with it. But supply and demand pushing up prices more than .60??? I think not. I know many of our Congressman here near Chicago ( I live in Naperville, W suburb) are looking into price gauging and I think they’re onto something there.

[Ringo]

From the Energy Information Administration’s Short-term Energy Outlook for June 2000:

Renewed strength in world oil prices following a short-lived slump in April and a dramatic rally in domestic natural gas prices in response to weak storage injection performance and general worries about near-term gas supplies has prompted us to sharply increase expected levels for energy prices in the short term. Given our general expectations about growth in world oil demand and supply, the oil price adjustment for this Outlook is a shift in the expected level and not a move away from the conviction that prices should trend downward from current levels by year end. Meanwhile, as higher crude oil prices have intervened, and as generally low inventories have resulted in some greater-than-expected tightness in gasoline markets, particularly in the Midwest, we now recognize that hopes for an early peak in pump prices this year have given way to expectations of some continued increases in June and possibly July. For natural gas prices, the possibility that some surprisingly strong growth in electricity demand so far this year may be followed by robust growth this summer has enhanced concerns about gas supply keeping up with demand during the storage injection season. Continued wide swings in natural gas prices are likely to be a feature of this summer as long as the vagaries of the weather play such an important role in the outlook for gas supply over the next 6 to 9 months.
.
.
.
In 1999, world oil demand growth was mainly concentrated in OECD countries, particularly the United States. In 2000, non-OECD Asia is expected once again to be the predominant region for oil demand growth, although near-term growth rates there are unlikely to match those seen in the early to mid 1990s. By 2001, not only is non-OECD oil demand expected to grow even more, but OECD oil demand growth is expected to be strong as well
.
.
.
Motor Gasoline. After initially reaching $1.53 per gallon in the third week of March, the price of regular unleaded, self-service retail motor gasoline fell but then rose again to an average of $1.54 per gallon in late May. The most recent price increase followed a period which began at the end of March when the pump price started receding in response to lower world crude oil prices, and had declined by 11 cents by the beginning of May. At the time, it seemed that the driving season’s peak prices were behind us. Declining pump prices were projected for the remainder of the year. However, this optimism turned out to be short-lived. Several important factors have caused this turnabout. First of all, world crude oil prices have staged substantial gains since April, increasing by nearly $4.00 per barrel. Some of this increase may be tied to strong U.S. gasoline demand, which accounts for over 10 percent of total world petroleum demand. Looking backward, it appears that the rapid fall in the world oil price that followed the OPEC meeting in March (see world oil discussion above) was an overreaction to the promise of new supplies from OPEC countries. The incremental increase in production simply wasn’t enough to satisfy the increasing demands for petroleum and to make demonstrable headway against sharply reduced world oil inventories. Low inventories for gasoline is the other major factor causing the high gasoline prices.
.
.
.
Total petroleum products demand in 1999 grew by 607,000 barrels per day, or 3.2 percent, the largest year-to-year growth since 1988. Transportation demand accounted for more than half that growth, and liquefied petroleum products accounted for much of the rest of that increase. Despite the recent highs in product prices and little prospect of any easing of those prices to levels observed in previous years, total U.S. petroleum demand is still projected to rise throughout the forecast period. Consumption, however, is expected to grow by only 100,000 barrels per day in 2000 (0.5 percent) but by a further 380,000 barrels per day (1.9 percent) in 2001
.
.
.
While natural gas imports have generally been rising significantly in recent years, the United States May be running into some short-term supply constraints. Several years of relatively low prices have slowed down exploration and drilling for new sources of supply. Recent higher prices have caused drilling to rebound, but new supplies may not begin to yield significant improvements in actual production until after this summer.

Cristi, I am way upstream from the retail distribution end of the business, so I don’t know that much about daily price swings at that level. But on the crude market, the price can move quite quickly, when that happens everybody downstream knows their cost to replace inventory is subject to change as well.

[Milossarian]

Meanwhile, as higher crude oil prices have intervened, and as generally low inventories have resulted in some greater-than-expected tightness in gasoline markets, particularly in the Midwest, we now recognize that hopes for an early peak in pump prices this year have given way to expectations of some continued increases in June and possibly July.

Aw, dang-it-all, say the petroleum manufacturers and wholesalers. All of these factors are going to dash our hopes of keeping gas below $2 per gallon throughout the busiest driving season of the year.

We’ll all be crying ourselves to sleep at night on our pillows for a few months.

Keep telling us how we should be thankful, though, that it’s only $2.05 a gallon.

(I wish I could make one of those smilies with the rolly eyes right now.)

[SpartanDC]

At least you can buy regular gas. I went to my normal gas station the other day, and they were OUT of regular. There was just no more left. So, I had to pay $2.05 for midgrade. And, for the first time in my admittedly brief gas-buying career, I had to pay more than $10.00 to get enough gas in my little Neon to make the trip from Lansing to Detroit and back.
This is really really starting to hurt my college student pocketbook. It doesn’t help that here in Michigan, we had a huge gasoline leak in Jackson that I guess supplied one-third of the state’s oil.
I wasn’t around for the 1970s energy crisis, but I have a grim feeling this was how it started out.
When the summer started, I banned myself from buying fast food, CDs, movie tickets, and clothes. But this was to save money for a computer and for living expenses for a planned internship. It was NOT to buy gas.
Thanks a lot OPEC.