Better go fill up your gas tank

Crude oil, diesel, gasoline, motor oil, other refined products…I’ve given up on trying to figure out they hows and whys of the way each product is priced. Gasoline is a dollar a gallon more than it was 2 months ago but motor oil is down significantly. Diesel is always all over the place. But the price of crude isn’t as volatile.

Politics, supply and demand, taxes, whatever.

There are numerous variables that contribute to the price of gasoline at the pump, many of them political. Numerous professional prognosticators trying to predict gas prices over the year have ended up with “egg on their faces”. I’m only happy that it’s a cheap as it is at the moment. As a commuter, it was bankrupting me a few years ago.

The oil industry consists of 3 different businesses. There is production of crude, reefing it into products and the marketing and distribution.

At the moment there is no shortage of crude oil, and it remains cheap. There is a very tight reefing situation due to the strike in the US and some unplanned shutdowns, driving up the retail price of gas. European refineries are exporting large amounts of product to North America. To complicate things further, the cold snap in the Eastern US has driven up the price of heating oil just when production is cut.

Refineries at this time would normally start producing gas for the summer season when the bulk is used.

Commuted just today…at a net gain !
U.S.District court in Albuquerque has me on jury duty and they pay 57 cents a mile…for my 280 mile round trip for which I put in 45 dollars of gas to fill it up from about 1/3 tank… and still have 1/3 tank left.