Comment on the May 10th posting:Â Yes, we had a price re-set last week to $3.99, so the prediction was CORRECT.
Monday, May 18, 2008, 11:45 AM: Wholesale prices are a bit higher than a week ago, when we hit $3.999, and there are a lot of low $3.80’s around town, so I expect a re-set to $3.99 again this week. We might officially go over $4, but I suspect that Speedway is going to resist doing that as long as they can, as they did when we first went over $3. Even the refiners are losing money in this environment, because while oil has doubled in price since last May, due to slack demand, they have not been able to do the same with gasoline. (If they could, we would be paying $7 a gallon right now!)
Ed/Patrick,
While you’re on the subject of $7 gasoline, can you talk briefly about what you think the future holds?
Do you think this high-3’s gas price is the new norm, or will things settle down to the low 3’s or lower? Could they possibly move higher into the 4’s or higher and stay there?
1.06*(WP + RM + FF + TX + MS) + ST
The huge run-up in prices is driven by a change in WP? The RM/FF are discretionary I guess, and so aren’t to blame for the bulk of the change. (Speedway raises those to buy those stupid televisions, right? 🙂
So if the dollar strengthened, and OPEC threw us a bone, could WP get back to where it was? We spend 10 years in the $1’s and now we’ve shot through the 2’s and 3’s in how long? 3 years?
I can only assume that the prices are a product of supply and demand and so I wonder, since George can’t get the Saudi’s to pump more oil, that demand (seasonal though it may be) will continue to trend higher, marking higher prices?
There was a time when gas was such a price and would stay still for a week or more. Now the prices seem to change daily. Is this an unusual time for gasoline, or is the definition of “usual” changing?