Price of Gasoline and riduculous fluctuations!!!!?

Question

Wow...I cannot believe that gas dropped almost 25 cents a litre yesterday down from $1.03 or so to .75 cents/litre (that would be almost $1.00 a gallon in the US).

Why do you think gas fluctuates like that? The radio said "gas up because prices will skyrocket for the long weekend".

Now give me a break if that is gas gouging what is?

PS It cost me $42 at the discounted price to fill up and I had a quarter of a tank of gas in it still!!! :~) Isn't that nuts? Would have cost me close to $60 at the usual $1.00 plus price.

Answer 1

The oil market are a lot of opportunistic bastards. Prices will rise as long as they are able to explain it off and will drop only when they can't come up with a good enough excuse why it should be kept that high.

OPEC will set the price to whatever they want because they have the oil, then refineries will refine it and add a nice fat cut to themselves to cover costs fo rrefining, for the original crude, and their own profit. Then another 20-30 cents is added on for Federal and state taxes and all that is passed on to the consumer.

If the refineries can find any way to increase profits, they'll do it.
Threat of the remote possibility of a chance of a hint that someone might possibly be wanting to bomb a car somewhere in the Middle east? MAJOR SHORTAGE OF OIL, RAISE THE PRICE BY 25 CENTS IMMEDIATELY.

Notice that pricing raises (at least in the US) can jump almost half dollar overnight, but will take weeks or months to have it come down to even 25 cents of that inflated cost, then it happens again next week and another 20 cent increase, and so on and so on.

You'll have $1.50/gal one week, and a month later you'll be paying. $2.00 a week later, and the chances of it ever coming down to $1.50 are slim to none.

People can blame the whole increase in global demand, which is of course true, but the tactics used by oil companies are always highly suspect.

One such company ExxonMobil said a few months ago that they supposedly were feeling the plight of the people that gas is too expensive, and that they were the victims of OPEC, etc etc and that they were actually taking losses to provide us with decently priced gasoline. --Then a month or two ago, they boast that their profits for the quarter was the most ever earned by a company in Human history.

Answer 2

I wish gas would drop $1 per gallon here in the U.S. It should NOT cost me $30 to fill up a Saturn Ion!!!!! Gas prices do generally go up a bit during big holiday weekends, because the companies know that a lot of people are going to be driving places. I still think it's a bunch of crap. I remember when I was younger, and I'm only 26, that gas used to be less than $1/gallon. Now, I'm depressed, because gas has come down to $2.57/gallon, and I think that's cheap....