I’m not usually the one to latch on to big oil conspiracies, but this one has me scratching my head. Yesterday, oil closed at $97 per barrel. Gas at the station near my house: $4.09. In 2008, when oil reached $135 per barrel, gas at the station near my house: $4.19. What gives?
Also, related: Last year when gas was $2.60 per gallon, I bought kerosene at the local store: $3.59/gal. Yesterday with gas at $4.09, I bought kerosene: $3.59/gal. What’s up with that?
The price of oil is related to, but not the only variable that goes into the price of oil. Demand is also a key factor, as well as refining capacity.
This sort of observation comes up quite often when gasoline prices rise – motor oil prices or asphalt prices also don’t seem to rise as much as gasoline prices as the price of crude rises. The answer is what Telemark: said: refining capacity – which includes the fact that gasoline is synthesized (cracked, IOW made from other parts of crude), specifically blended for different parts of the US and different seasons, and not stored for too long, and kerosine is a specific fraction, distilled off and stored for however long it’s needed (possibly, IANApetrochemist).
There’s also demand, I’d heard (and I may be wrong) that diesel fuel and airplane fuel are essentially kerosine. Those have gone up in price along with crude oil. That’s the demand factor – you want a tank load of something, for every trip you take, the vendor will respond to the demand. It’s perfectly possible that the camp stove vendors have already marked up the kerosine price to what the market will bear – maybe already at 5x cost, for years, before there ever was an oil crunch.
And you can’t leave off confirmation bias, you have very specific prices, I can’t say you just “noticed sum’pin” but still, this is just a couple of observation points of yours, not a nationwide trend.
From what I’ve read, one of the causes of recent high gas prices has been problems at an Oklahoma refinery.
So that would suggest that demand is far greater now than in the summer of 2008? Or that our refining capacity has diminished since then?
I understand about the one facility in the midwest, but that should be a temporary blip, no?
I don’t know about consumption. I’d guess it’s the same or greater (not necessarily far greater).
Refineries aren’t cheap and you can find numerous quotes (via google) that the US hasn’t built a new refinery in something like 30 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if capacity has diminished over the last decade. Plus you get that supply/demand thing. Less refining capacity means the remaining refiners can charge more. Here’s an old (2007) NPR article about it: Lack of Capacity Fuels Oil-Refinery Profits : NPR
However, this chart looks like refining capacity is slightly up, though given those numbers I’d describe it as pretty flat overall. http://www.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capprod_dcu_nus_a.htm
I believe there is also a winter- and summer-blend gasoline. It’s my understanding that when refineries switch over there is a lag in production. It seems kind of early for summer-blend (as it’s just Spring) but I don’t know how the business works.
In summary, I don’t know 
THE ROLE OF MARKET SPECULATION IN RISING OIL AND GAS PRICES (PDF)
A super-condensed executive summary of that document: Supply exceeds demand. Refining capacity and drilling capacity have grown to outpace demand. Speculation in the oil market has broken the connection between price and supply & demand.
Note that this is a US Senate Staff report, not a random internet conspiracy website.