Watch out: Here comes $4 gasoline

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: cnn.com

Gasoline prices, already above $3 a gallon in some states, could charge higher this summer and hit $4 a gallon in some locations, according to one industry expert.

Pump prices were supposed to peak below $3 a gallon this May, then drop off before the summer driving season got into full swing, according to the Energy Department's price forecast. Well, we're not even out of April yet, and the nationwide average price for a gallon of unleaded regular has hit $2.87.

One big factor driving prices: gasoline inventories continue to fall. After a promising one-week boost in refining activity, the latest report Wednesday actually shows refining activity falling. And demand is already soaring, before the summer driving season is in full swing.

Five states - California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Nevada - already have average prices above $3 a gallon, according to the motorist organization AAA. In California, the average price of gas has reached $3.35 a gallon.

Kilduff said it will be in those states, and possibly New England and the northern Midwest, where prices have the best chance of hitting $4 a gallon, mostly as a result of localized refinery problems.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/26/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm?cnn=yes

[mike_c]

1. I fully expect to be paying $4 this summer in norcal....

I'll bet it peaks there just before July 4. How conveeeeeenient.....

[villager]

2. Michael Ventura on "$4 a Gallon"

http://www.energybulletin.net/6056.html

[MisterHowdy]

26. Great post!!

thx for the link..

[villager]

37. U R Welcome!

:thumbsup:

[saracat]

3. Ditto in Az. How "convieeeeenient" is right.

[n2doc]

4. And can $5 be far away?

[Javaman]

34. I'm prdicting sometime in sept or late auguest nt

[Cobalt Violet]

5. So it's mostly a blue state thing.

Interesting.

[trogdor]

21. Pretty obvious.

Not sure how interesting, unless somebody finds some evidence of chicanery going on.

[Tippy]

6. Went up 10 cents a gal. yesterday here...

Guess they got tired of raising the price pennies a day, simple answer quit driving or drive only when absolutely necessary....The poor can make a difference at the pumps if they want to.

[Purveyor]

11. Crap. I just checked our local mid-michigan price and we are up to $2.999! eom

[Delphinus]

32. Yep, went up $.12 today ...

and not one peep from the local gasbags (media). They don't even have the price watcher, where you go to find the cheapest gas.

[earthside]

7. DOW 13,000

But ... but ... the Dow closed over 13,000.

Doesn't that mean that the Bush tax cuts are working and that we all have plenty of extra money to spend on $4.00 a gallon gasoline?

Uh?

[4bucksagallon]

8. I've been expecting this for some time hence my name.

I may have to change it to 6bucksagallon because I think the rich reptiles want the roads to themselves.

[KansDem]

9. The know the end is near...

Bush Family buys land in Paraguay over the largest fresh-water aquifer during a time when global climate change, which the Bushistas deny, is bringing on droughts around the world;

Gasoline execs are gouging the consumer, hoping to make big $$$ before the oil runs out;

Halliburton moves to UAE, signifying that doing business in a terrorist nation is better than in the "land of the free, home of the brave;"

The Ueber-rich are taking advantage of the Bush tax cuts to hunker down in their guarded communities away from the riff-raff, ready to ride out the "uprising;"

More and more civil liberties are being taken away from the masses, making it more difficult for them to counter the completion of the fascist revolution;

They're all gettin' out while the gettin's good and to hell with the world...

[Purveyor]

10. $4 will be the 'bargain price' if this turns out to be an active hurricane season as predicted.. eom

[CountAllVotes]

12. $3.49 a gallon here & steadily rising

and higher in some places, like where the "haves" shop. :+

:kick:

[polmaven]

13. But, but, but....

I thought the neo's said the price of gasoline went up because of the British hostage taking!!!

I mean...damn Brits.....I thought it was all their fault.....

Tsk! I'm SO CONFUSED!!!!! :shrug:

[kimmylavin]

14. SoCal Checking In

I paid $3.69 this morning!
Not sure how I'm going to commute anymore, but thank goodness for my cheap and efficient Yaris! :)
Of course, if we had any USEFUL form of public transportation, I'd be all over it.
I miss New Jersey/New York...

[Blue_Tires]

24. welcome to the site!

[Duer 157099]

15. Does the word "ENRON" ring any bells, hmmmmmmm??

I just finally watched "The Smartest Guys in the Room" and could not help noticing the frightening parallel between the BushCo admin, oil prices (among other things), and the whole Enron fiasco.

Rove must have kept a careful studied eye on those guys, huh?

[NickB79]

16. The words that are ringing my bells (as in warning sirens) are "peak oil"

Global production of oil seems to have peaked in the spring of 2005. In the past 2 years, global oil production as decreased, while global oil demand has increased. When demand exceeds supply, things will get really interesting, really fast.

[damntexdem]

17. Well of course! How could there not be?

After all, this isn't an election year. ;-)

[StarryNite]

18. Yep

We need to have national elections every year just to keep the price of gas down.

[truthisfreedom]

20. Hey, I think you're onto something. National Elections Every Year! Great idea.

[NickB79]

19. Good, bring it on

I just drove 230 miles yesterday on 5.25 gallons of gas. My car isn't even a hybrid either, it's a $15,000 Scion xA I bought 2 years ago knowing full well that gas prices were NEVER going to come back down to the good old days of $1/gallon like when I was a teenager.

You want to know the absolute best way to use less gas? SLOW DOWN!!! My car is rated at 38 mpg highway, but I can get between 45-46 mpg driving with the cruise control set to 55 mph. I can get over 50 mpg if I draft semis.

[primavera]

23. My thoughts as well

Given the number an variety of increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles out there, there's no need to be overly concerned about rising gas prices. Even at $4/gallon, I'd be paying far less to get places in my Prius than I was in my last car paying $2/gallon.

[lonestarnot]

22. Maybe even $5.00.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

25. "Now where did I leave that fucking jawbone?"

[ryanmuegge]

31. Yeah, we're still waiting for that campaign promise.

When's he going to tell the Saudis to open their spigots?

Great picture, by the way.

[AndyTiedye]

27. $4 Gas Coming Soon To All Blue States!

Five states - California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Nevada - already have average prices above $3 a gallon, according to the motorist organization AAA. In California, the average price of gas has reached $3.35 a gallon.

Kilduff said it will be in those states, and possibly New England and the northern Midwest, where prices have the best chance of hitting $4 a gallon, mostly as a result of localized refinery problems.

"localized refinary problems" in all the blue states, and only one red state (Nevada). Imagine that!

[WI Independent]

28. And Exxon-Mobil...

announced yet another record first quarter.

I wish I had a business where I could increase my profits by producing less!!! Of course I would have to get all my "competition" to agree to produce less also... and we all know that's illegal. :sarcasm:

[DFW]

29. Enjoy it while you can!

Here in Central Europe, it's about $7 per US gallon (higher in France and the UK).

$4 would take you back some 7 years.

[comtec]

39. I would point out a couple things however...

Here in holland Petrol is 1.50e a liter (3.75 a gallon you do the math) MOST of that is TAX, that (supposedly) goes to public transportation, ROADS, etc!

Diesel is just under a Euro per liter. We also have something called LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) that costs around 50 cents a liter - its literally gas cooled to liquid form and is a by product of the refining product - thus it's a waste product that can be used as fuel.

Second.. I would point out that the Dollar is DROPPING like a STONE on Jupiter! the dollar is currently $1.36 (as of this posting) per ONE EURO!

the BUYING POWER of the euro however, has historically been the same as a dollar (that becoming less true as even the dollar buys less now a days). so 5e a gallon here, is still about 5 USD a gallon.. the DIFFERENCE IS PROFIT! where as 3-4e of that gallon HERE is going towards THE STATE (that's a good thing really) ALL of that 4/gallon is going to the refineries!

Honesty the EU vs US gas cost argument is a false one imho. you can't compare the two because of tax v profit. the money being demanded from the state is going to use, where as in the US, it's just being stolen, and none of it being returned to the economy.

that aside (being from the bay area) O M F G!

[3waygeek]

30. Here in the NE suburbs of Atlanta

it went up 22 cents (from 2.67 Tuesday AM to 2.89 this AM). Now down to 2.85.

[ikojo]

33. Buy one of these

I get 60-65 miles per gallon. I ride in all kinds of weather and can carry most things I need.

[Javaman]

35. one of what? the pic is not working. nt

[Javaman]

36. So way back when the price of oil was flirting with 80 bucks a barrel

the price of gas was roughly 3.25 here in texas and about 4 bucks in california.

now the price of a barrel is roughly 65 bucks and we are now being boiled once again to almost 3.50 a gallon here in texas and 4 bucks in california.

if they give me this whole, "refinery problems" bullshit one more time, I'll scream.

it's all bullshit folks, every last bit of it.

yes, I believe oil is peaking but this time around it's nothing more than boiling the frog to squeeze out as much money from us until oil really becomes scarce.

[rekoveringamerikan]

38. shut up and suck it up!

as a rekovering amerikan, you better get a grip on the fact that the US has had the lowest gasoline prices in the world forever. I've left amerika twice now to live over seas in a happier less violent and hate filled place. I topped up the tank today and paid $5.95 a gallon. get over your sad sorry self and worry about the real problems in this world, not how much you might have to pay to fill up your sad sorry gas guzzler. about time amerikans started to feel the problems the rest of the world has been experiencing for years now. HOOK EM!

[comtec]

40. See above post on fuel prices

I would also recommend some counseling as you seem to have repressed anger for one reason or another.

What drives me up the wall is how the SUV has been way over sold in the US.. mainly because euros have too much sense (and no need) to buy them, in general. IF they want a SUV.. they buy a land rover and get something that CAN drive across Africa in one piece.

Hybrids are a great solution, as is pure electric autos (they need to make solar home charging station available for those of us with a back yard to put them) which are V E R Y rare here, as are hybrids - for two reasons I think. First is autos here already average over 40MPG, second is that autos here are very small, in general.

I owned a Kia Sephia (the sedan), which in California is a average, even slightly smallish car. HERE.. it's a tad on the large side. Hybrids push size and weight limits to get the most efficiency out of them. any current hybrid would be a bit bit, so hybrids for europe really need to be designed in europe, and there are NO, NONE, diesel hybrids here that i know of, which is a shame as diesels already get excellent gas mileage (go look at the VW golf diesel, and be amazed at the mileage).