Family matters have kept me away from the Gas Game lately. For those of you playing at home, you should be noticing a discrepancy between the expected gas price, using the NYMEX futures, and what has been happening in Grand Rapids, in that gas has been CHEAPER than expected in GR. My theory is that this pending change in NY and Connecticut, where MTBE gasoline will be banned as of January 1, is causing prices there to go up now. This is confirmed by this data from the Department of Energy. Consequently, we currently have a “Chicago Winter Discount” of about 6 cents it looks like. Here’s what I think happens this week: Price hike to $1.54. Well, couldn’t be more CORRECT than that!