Gas prices Seem to be Creeping Upwards, What are you Paying at the Pump?

[TonyL]

We'll gladly swap with all of you, current price for diesel in the UK is equivalent to $6.32 per US gallon. Now that's what you call taxation.
TonyL

 

[Tom]

We'll gladly swap with all of you, current price for diesel in the UK is equivalent to $6.32 per US gallon. Now that's what you call taxation.
TonyL

Aye Tony, but look at all the government handouts you get I recall when I first visited the US (from UK) in the 70's, gas/petrol here was $0.58/US gallon. It felt like it was free compared with the UK.

 

[NY_Dutch]

Rules of supply and demand are certainly a factor, but I've informally studied gas station pricing trends for decades now... and they do not seem to strictly follow standard supply and demand. The repeating pattern is that prices will jump up 20-30 cents per gallon... the creep down a penny or two each day for a couple weeks... then jump back up 20-30 cents. Economic (and political) circumstances may impact how fast/long the creep happens (if prices are dropping) or how often the 20-30 cent bumps happen (if prices are rising), but that "imbalanced yo-yo" pricing at the pump is a fixture of the retail fuel industry. I don't really know when/why it started, and we don't see those same drastic price hikes with other goods on the market (such as groceries) that use similar types of supply chains.

Remember "gas wars" in the 1980's and 90's when two stations across the street from one another would battle it out for who could offer the lowest price? That kind of competition doesn't seem to exist anymore in that market. They're all in some kind of "cahoots" and rise and fall simultaneously, within local areas. I've gotten pretty good at predicting the pricing pattern, and fill up my cars at the end of the creep-down... right before the big price jump upward. But sometimes I wait too long and lose the advantage. That's about as close as I ever get to gambling.

Does your pricing theory account for the fact that the average gas price (all grades) for February 2021 was just about the same as it was 15 years ago according to the USEIA?

U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices (Dollars per Gallon)

 

[Viajeros]

In Calgary we see $1.12/L or about $3.25USD/US gal for regular gas.
Diesel is $1.10/L or about $3.19USUSD/US gal.

Yup taxed to death up here...

Meh. Gas and diesel are more expensive in California than BC or Alberta. .

 

[PJ Stough]

Why the Price of Oil Surged Beyond $65 a Barrel

 

[jackiemac]

UK equivalent- $7.70 per gallon for diesel yesterday.

We don't do the same miles luckily!

 

[Matt_C]

I kind of hate to say it like this, but the (expletive deleted) did you expect. The Keystone got killed along with drilling and Anwar and the Gulf.
In Michigan we are up 0.70$ a gallon long before the driving season rise should start.
We have just cut our summer travel to nearly nothing. Being on a fixed income with rising taxes means we get to do even less. Like it or not, this is what happens.
Matt

 

[Viajeros]

Interesting article on one city curtailing gas station building. This is getting common in Europe and other parts of the world. Gas station numbers have been on the downhill slide for awhile but now EV’s will start to affect that. 5000 new cars per day every day without gas tanks hitting the road. I’m thinking this will get more common.

https://www.fastcompany.com/9060870...nned-the-construction-of-any-new-gas-stations

 

[Ray-IN]

I'm now paying about $3.50 less per gallon than 2012. When in the MH I don't look at fuel prices, just always stop at PFJ and fill the tank. If I must always be searching for the lowest price I have no business driving a fuel hog. This is what can happen searching for the lowest price:

 

[NY_Dutch]

I kind of hate to say it like this, but the (expletive deleted) did you expect. The Keystone got killed along with drilling and Anwar and the Gulf.
In Michigan we are up 0.70$ a gallon long before the driving season rise should start.
We have just cut our summer travel to nearly nothing. Being on a fixed income with rising taxes means we get to do even less. Like it or not, this is what happens.
Matt

Area you aware that the tar sand crude oil shipped through the existing Keystone pipeline and would have also shipped through the Keystone XL pipeline are primarily processed at refineries for sale to foreign markets? Some experts even posit that the additional refinery load from the KXL pipeline could have raised US retail gas prices due to the effectively reduced refinery capacity. As said, supply and demand are the primary factors that drive US retail fuel prices...

 

[DonTom]

Didn’t you expect them to go up?
Elections have consequences.

I have noticed for years that gas prices are low right before an election for POTUS and go up again right after.

Is it just a coincidence or is there more to it?

A high gasoline price could help sell a few more EVs.

-Don- Auburn, CA

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

We see event-related pricing several times a year in my part of Florida. Whenever there is a big event in Daytona (it's Bike Week right now) or the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, pump prices jump several cents/gal, then slowly come back done after. Unless of course another event follows soon. Right now both of those places are flooded with visitors, so local prices are running $2.62-$2.72, already down a couple cents from last weekend. This past week, there were no rental cars to be had in the region - visitors had them all. Enterprise and and Hertz were shipping them in by truck loads and they were immediately snapped up.

Gas demand is way up and that's probably the main factor, but there can be little doubt that politics is having an effect too. It may only be fear of future price increases or shortages, but oil futures is one of the major drivers of the current price. I doubt if we will see last years prices again for quite awhile.

 

[Jayflight]

as demand is way up and that's probably the main factor, but there can be little doubt that politics is having an effect too. It may only be fear of future price increases or shortages, but oil futures is one of the major drivers of the current price. I doubt if we will see last years prices again for quite awhile.

Printing the amount of money thats going on now devalues the dollar, which the bulk of the oil is traded in. So inflation and increases of prices has to be around the corner in all sectors.

 

[Lou Schneider]

When I drove through Las Vegas yesterday regular was around $3.00 - $3.20 a gallon. I waited to fill up until I got home to Pahrump and paid $2.59. When I left three weeks ago the local price was about the same.

 

[A Traveler]

Didn’t you expect them to go up?
Elections have consequences.

Amen to that. Give the current administration a couple more years and we will once again be dependent on Middle East oil. And we’ll once again be paying $4 per gallon for gas, just as we did in the pre-Trump era.

Consequences indeed.

 

[DonTom]

When I drove through Las Vegas yesterday regular was around $3.00 - $3.20 a gallon. I waited to fill up until I got home to Pahrump and paid $2.59. When I left three weeks ago the local price was about the same.

When I was in Pahrump last November, at least one gas station there was $1.999 per gal of 87. Gas was a little cheaper in Pahrump, NV than anywhere I went to in AZ, but AZ was close to $2.00 in some areas.

BTW, I stayed at the Winery RV Park for a week as I had several people in Pahrump to meet from a firearms forum (Nevada Shooters). I also stayed at the Winery RV park for a week a few years ago. It's a nice RV Park. But many coyotes around. I saw a good dozen of them in a mile hike out of the park. So people with small pets need to be careful out there.

-Don- Auburn, CA

 

[Panfish Pa]

I am in Cincinnati, $3.00/gal Diesal $276/gal reg. I will add we camped in central Florida the first half of January, I saw gas as low as $1.99/gal but most was around $2.35, who needs the Keystone pipeline, when we can buy oil from people who want to kill us! I dont get it.

 

[PJ Stough]

I am in Cincinnati, $3.00/gal Diesal $276/gal reg. I will add we camped in central Florida the first half of January, I saw gas as low as $1.99/gal but most was around $2.35, who needs the Keystone pipeline, when we can buy oil from people who want to kill us! I dont get it.

"I dont get it."

That is more than obvious.

First of all virtually NONE of the oil coming from Canada was going to be sold in the USA. It was, and still is, going to be transported to Houston to be refined, and then sold to China. It could put upward pressure on prices as it could limit refinery capacity for oil from the US.

Canada should have built the pipeline to their west coast, but then they would have had to build a refinery. The pipeline across the US to Houston was cheaper.

After reading many of these posts is seems that some people really expected prices to stay as low as they were during the pandemic caused recession.

That is wishful thinking!

 

[Viajeros]

"I dont get it."

That is more than obvious.

First of all virtually NONE of the oil coming from Canada was going to be sold in the USA. It was, and still is, going to be transported to Houston to be refined, and then sold to China. It could put upward pressure on prices as it could limit refinery capacity for oil from the US.

Canada should have built the pipeline to their west coast, but then they would have had to build a refinery. The pipeline across the US to Houston was cheaper.

After reading many of these posts is seems that some people really expected prices to stay as low as they were during the pandemic caused recession.

That is wishful thinking!

Canada has a pipeline to the west coast. It is currently in the process of being twinned. It is called the Trans mountain pipeline. Completion of the twinning should be this year. There are natural gas pipelines as well but trans mountain is for crude.

 

[Jayflight]

The pipeline and the oil that would have flowed was only part of the equation. There was small towns along the way that lost a lot of revenue for their infrastructure. There were future jobs destroyed. But the Keystone pipeline was just one item that was reversed by the current administration in the oil and gas industry that affected other areas of the country which provided spin off funding to the general funds of other states. So there was direct loss of product that provided jobs and funded many programs unrelated to refineries in the U.S.