$4 gas coming by spring? Analysts think so

Could be, that if we accept the fact it may go to $4.00 per gal.,

$3.25 & 3.50 per will look Cheap.

Now that's a deal !!!

 

Is gas rising or is just the dollar sinking?

 

Malorn says its going to be $2.50 by the end of April.

http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-h...soline-could-drop-50-cents-gallon-spring.html

Meanwhile, the price has gone from $3.05 to $3.35 for regular unleaded where I live since he posted that.

 

I pass two gas stations (Shell and BP) on my way to work every day. A few weeks ago they were both charging $2.95 for regular. Now the Shell is at $3.13 and the BP is $3.19.

 

Both.

Oil is becoming scarcer due to increased demand and limited ability to increase production. Peak Oil is here or will be here very soon.

The dollar is falling, and that will raise the price of oil and gasoline in the US.

Harry

 

Sometimes you just got wonder what has gotten into his head or if he just isn't all there.

The unfortunate thing is that some people still are perpetrating the misinformation that we have plenty of oil. I heard a radio host this morning saw we had only use a couple of trillion barrels of oil up to this point and still something like over 20 trillion barrels, enough for decades of sustained use of oil with abandon. I wish I had heard his webpage...maybe I can find it. EDIT: Found his blog, but didn't find any of the info he was talking about.

 

Ya know, even if we did have a completely endless supply of oil, I don't think burning it all and putting it into our atmosphere is the best thing we could be doing with it.

 

Still seems like there are a lot of people who don't think this. I have talked with my brother-in-law who is indirectly a part of the oil business (in the carbon black business). Through these talks, I realized and he agreed that our economy at the moment is almost completely based on oil. Common sense would suggest that with oil being a nonrenewable resource, we should try not to use it without thought or concern.

 

I always think about all of the things that are made with oil.

Plastics, synthetic rubber, thread for fabrics, chemicals - basically the raw material for a lot of the stuff we buy.

As the cost of oil goes up, the cost of all those things will go up as well.

Yet we are burning it to power our cars and putting it up in the atmosphere where it ruins the air that we breathe.

We are collectively retarded.

 

Exactly. Through talking with him and hearing about how much carbon black was used for, the price of everything right now is influenced (eventually) by the cost of oil. We are dumb in that these hasn't sunken in to most people.

To paraphrase T. Boone Pickens, it is pretty dumb to use up 3/4ths of our supply of oil on something with nothing to show for it.

 

well i posted on another thread that the price of gas between my last two fillups which were 8 days apart went from $2.879 to $3.099...that was last Friday. Now 6 days later, its $3.199.

that makes our gas not quite as volatile since nationwide, the price of gas has gone up 27 cents per gallon this month. we as you all can see only went up 22 cents...

and yes i do think about that as i humm past the gas station in my Zenn knowing it will be another 2 months before Puget Sound Energy can even ASK for an electricity rate increase...

 

To be fair, he was quoting a news article, and as you say, he's not the only one thinking there's enough gas & oil, at least until something better supplants it. (The whole whale-oil argument).

The article he referenced, and others like it, point out that our gas inventories have risen lately and are actually fairly large. Couple that with a weak economy, and you could see downward pressure. However, the base price of the raw material (petroleum) has increased about 50% since this time last year, so I'm not sure inventory numbers are the whole story. The gas station owners need to make their money too. If gas inventories are high enough however, then we should start buying less petroleum, and that should lower the price, however marginally. The chart I've been keeping of gas prices I've paid shows a definite upward curve that's predicting about $3.50 average for the rest of the year, and summer is usually the expensive season.

 

Nothing? Maybe in some vague, spiritual, non-materialistic, hare khrisna sort of way, but look around you. In your room, your home, your town, where ever you go is stuff made far away and brought to you by cheap energy. It really is amazing when you think about it. In an Adam Smith invisible hand sort of way, which is kind of spiritual.

More directly apropos, I once read a peak oil article that held that when push comes to shove, gasoline production will be the first to be restricted in favor of things such as making plastic stuff.

 

True, but he swallowed the article hook, line, and sinker. He even predicted in his post of seeing $2.00 gas and stated $2 being more likely than $5 in the future was the reason for my current comment. Your arguments show a more complete view, in line with the current stories, and I would not have begrudged if he had taken a more comprehensive approach. Course, a GM dealer spending a lot of time on a Prius board trying to convince people of the merits of GM and evil of Toyota is interesting to say the least.

I took his quote to mean that the largest percentage is for personal transportation rather than transport of goods. Even taking into account transport of goods, I would argue that the things in my room and home will still be avialable without cheap energy. I would probably not be able to afford it as much, but I personally don't think lots of cheap stuff is something of substance to our society. One could say somethings add to our quality of life, but I say most do little to improve the quality of our society.

This seems like a pretty likely that would be the case or a lot of plastic and other products would need to be made out of something other than oil.

 

If that was you in the Zenn today on Pacific Ave, you should have waved back at me!

Oh, and gas, here in Grays Harbor (at Shell) was 3.399 for regular *sigh*

 

Actually, Malorn was extrapolating from the article - he made the $2.50 / gal prediction by the end of April in a later post in the thread.

I didn't mean to sidetrack this thread - I just thought it was amusing that there was a parallel thread in FHOP that was basically arguing the opposite from the article in this thread.

Regarding cheap oil allowing us to have all of the cheap "stuff" around us - it is true, but really will come back to bite us in the future - not only will the raw material (petroleum) cause the price of goods to go up, but it will also cost more to transport them - kind of a double whammy. And, because China and India are now making all of our "stuff", their need for oil is going to increase and we will be competing with them for the remaining oil.

Maybe go on a buying spree now and stock up?

 

$4.00 for a gallon of gas by summer.

The big headline in todays newspaper was $4 per gallon gas by May.
Blah Blah Blah.
Prius owners really don't have to alter our driving trips if this happens.
The SUV drivers will be crying the blues!

signed,

One smug Prius owner

 

Yes, but only because we tend not to think collectively. Individuals and corporations, being 'persons', generally think only of themselves, and this behaviour is reinforced all the time. It's part of the competitive business mantra that has infected our way of life.

By the way, $4 a gallon looks pretty cheap to many people in the world. Everything in perspective.

 

Yup, want cheap gas, go to Venezuela. Last I heard, it went up 40%.

From $0.12 all the way up to $0.17 per gal.