Gas Prices Plunge — Who Is To Blame?!
30 comments Sunday, 10-21-12 | Posted By Ed Aboufadel | Commentary, Predictions
Comment on the October 10 prediction: Prices fell, and keep falling, so the prediction is CORRECT!
Sunday, October 21, 2012, 8:45PM: This afternoon, I was in Lansing and I filled up for $3.31 a gallon. On October 5, we had a state-wide reset to $3.95, so, wow! It seems like a lot of the refinery/pipeline/summer vs. winter gas problems have been sorted out the past two weeks, leading to big drops in wholesale prices, which are being passed on to us. Here’s the thing, though — when someone finally gets around to really, really investigating gas prices, they need to look at this past week, too. How can wholesale prices in Chicago (using the Bloomberg quotes) go from $3.01 on October 9 to $2.41 eight days later? That makes as much sense as going in the opposite direction, which we have seen, too, and people have been quick to blame oil companies, oil refinery companies, the President, oil speculators, and some guy who almost became President.
As for next week, we’ll probably see a price reset to $3.49, which would be a price drop in a few places still. — Ed Aboufadel
Chicago spot up 2 cents at midday. My cost today 3.46, I think spike will be more like 3.59/3.69
For a bit over a week now, there has been an error in the SPIKE LINE DEVIATION cell for INDIANA. You’ll see it right away looking at it.
Does anyone know what the URL or website is for the rack numbers for Detroit?
Interesting how Dow goes down 200+ and oil barely budges…
Well we have finally hit the $2.99 mark in Toledo and quite a few less then $3.10.
3 stations in SW Ohio @ $2.999 right now.
All near each other.
Looks like we have $3.49 coming this morning. I was actually starting to think a hike was not going to happen this week.
$3.49?
With Chicago spot closing at $2.40 yesterday.
Funny, we have stations dropping below $3.00 today in SW Ohio. 11 so far.
Nothing on Speedways’ site indicating a spike here.
We have a Marathon station here in Lansing (401 South Pennsylvania and Kalamazoo) that is ALWAYS the first to go up… often before even Speedway. I guess they decided to jump the gun today, an ended up wrong. My apologies for making the assumption of a hike.
AW – Would not have really surprised me if Speedway DID jump. They’ve done it for no reason before.
Afternoon hike on in Indiana. $3.499. Our system detected it around 1pm.
Gas is now down to 3.20 on the southest side of Grand Rapids. Most of the city area is down to 3.30 or so and north side of Kent COunty is still at the 3.40 range? (gee does anyone drive down to GRR to work and cheaper gas? Evidently they think NOT).
Many people blamed the president for gas being at over 4 a gallon. Soooo who takes the blame for this price fall? Why then its MARKET FORCES coming into play. Ahhh OK then….
WTI Oil-down, Chicago spot-down, Indiana gas prices-UP. What the hell’s going on here? Brought along my 5 gallon gas can to take advantage of Muncie’s $3.19 gas on a trip into town, but much to my dismay practically every gas station in town shot up to $3.49 overnight without me knowing it. Still a good deviation on the spike line saying we would drop more, but Greedway station states have the final ruling I suppose.
Chicago spot is UP 18c/gal in the last 24 hours.
Since my prediction, wholesale prices dropped more, so I thought we wouldn’t see a hike anywhere to $3.49. Why it happened just in Indiana is strange. No sign of a hike here in Michigan today … yet.
If spot is up another 10 cents since yesterday, that puts Ohio right at the spike line(if my math is right).
Think I will fill up today. The UDF 2 miles from work is $2.979.
So, when do all of you believe we will see a spike in price due to “Sandy” and possible shutdowns of refineries on the east coast?
I believe Ohio will spike this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
@Daniel G – I live in northern Kent County and work in downtown GR. Some times I have to go to SE side of GR or NW – I NEVER buy my gas where I live, I can always find it cheaper elsewhere. Yeah, you’d think they would get that. I think in the 8 years I’ve lived where I am, I’ve bought gas twice in my area. Hope any spike holds off till Monday, at least – gotta fill my tank tonight, then again on Sunday when I return from a weekend away – but, I’m not going to hold my breath – LOL!
In Indiana it seemed to propagate a LOT slower than usual – started in spots Thursday (and slowly) and finally made it to Indy by Friday night. Meijer did not send the (often) usual price alert…
Is everyone wondering why Diesel did not budge at all during this downward slide? lots of places were selling passenger vehicle diesel for $4.09… Not to mention E85…
Turbo46032, I think that the stations were not waiting for the first one to “blink” on pricing. I was wondering why they started at that time. I felt like it was a bit early. For myself, I’m glad it spread slowly because I was able to get my gas cans and the car filled up when I wasn’t really watching as closely as usual.
Gas is going up to 355 gallon in Grand Rapids Michigan
What a disconnect! We are hearing about price hikes in IN and MI but in Toledo stations are dropping to under $3! Any ideas what’s to blame? Marathon?
I would not be too concerned about $3.50 as many stations in the high rent districts here in Indy were near that mark pre-reset, holding on to 3.39 and such for dear life. It seems that for those who live in the high rent districts (high price zones) the spike/drop effect is nowhere as severe as for those in the low price zones. That’s where you go from 3.05 or 3.09 to 3.50.
$3.459 popping up at Greedways all throughout SW Ohio. Can’t let a good hurricane go to waste I guess. Was able to fill up both cars @ $2.959 an hour ago, while giving Greedway the metaphorical middle finger.
Gas as low as 3.20 in southeast are of GRR…AKA Kentwood and Wyoming…but going up in GR proper so I filled up at Lake Bella Vista Mobil for $3.44 this afternoon. Probably my last fill up at the .15 cent rebate program at Mobil too cause they are ending that the end of the month. C’est la vie. I got over 450 bucks in rebates over the life of the program…not too bad.
Rickers in Leo, IN this afternoon was $3.48 and their preferred customer program (which I belong to) was $3.36. That is a 12 cent discount. It is NEVER over 10 cents discount. Makes me wonder (or should I say confirm) if there isn’t a HUGE MARGIN right now.
Well Toledo did a reset this Sunday afternoon to $3.45 from a range of $2.95-$3.10.
Passed a station still selling for $2.989 at 7am today. Seeing a FEW pockets of resistance. It will just be a matter of time until the allure of an extra 47 cents/gallon profit becomes too much for them.
On GMA this morning they were saying that gas prices are still falling due to the over abundance. Guess they shoulda had someone covering Michigan – LOL!! However, there was a warning with the refineries on the east coast and the arrival of hurricane Sandy.