Has anyone seen less than $4/gallon gas lately?
- Thread starter tattedupboy
- Start date
HandsomeStranger
Molōn labe!
Same here in Louisville..$1.62
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
For the first time in something like 5 years, the average price nationwide is below $2. It's $1.89 right now.
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
It's the "calm" before the "storm".
gf
I prefer to think that it's supply and demand.
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
While this is typically the time of year during which gas prices are at their lowest point, I did not expect to see them fall this far this fast.
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
I apologize if this seems like the thread that just won't go away, but I'm just amazed at how low they've fallen. Today, the cheapest I saw was $1.34.
Hamster
Hamster
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
With oil prices now under $40/barrel, gas prices will probably continue to fall further.
Bloomberg.com: Energy Prices
Bloomberg.com: Energy Prices
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
Oil now at $38/barrel
Link Removed
Oil prices tumbled below $38 a barrel Tuesday on fresh evidence of weakness in the U.S. housing market and a shrinking gross domestic product that suggests the recession may be worsening.
A report by the Commerce Department showed that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while new home prices dropped by the biggest amount in eight months.
"The energy markets are reacting first and foremost to bad economic news, and it seems like they're almost waiting for something bad to occur," said oil analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover.
A steady outpouring of gloomy economic news has pushed to the background events that over the summer may have led to price spikes, like OPEC's announcement this month of unprecedented production cuts, Beutel said.
Prices have fallen 73 percent since July, with massive job layoffs and weak consumer spending eating away at energy use.
"Boy, it really looks ugly for the start of 2009," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service.
"It's really difficult to find something between now and inauguration time that says people are going to feel better, they're going to drive more, they're going to ship more packages," Kloza said.
Light sweet crude for February delivery fell 78 cents, to $39.13 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices fell as low as $37.79 earlier in the day.
Overnight, the February contract fell $2.45 to settle at $39.91 a barrel after Toyota Motor Corp. projected its first-ever operating loss since it began reporting such numbers in 1941.
Economists now believe a small decline in economic activity in the third quarter has worsened significantly.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, declined at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the July-September quarter. Corporate profits fell 1.2 percent.
Some economists believe the economy's decline in the October-December period could be as large as 6 percent. If so, that would be the worst quarterly drop since 1982.
The pain appears to have spread through almost every level of the economy. On Tuesday, shares of card maker American Greetings Corp. sank to their lowest level in 21 years after the company reported it swung to a loss in its third quarter.
With at least 2 million jobs lost since the beginning of the year and an economy that continues to deteriorate, Americans have drastically cut down on driving.
The Federal Highway Administration reported this month that Americans drove more than 100 billion fewer miles between November 2007 and October 2008, compared with the same period a year before.
Retail gasoline prices dropped for the 23rd week, reaching a national average of $1.653 a gallon as of Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Gasoline futures on the Nymex tumbled as low as 82 cents a gallon Tuesday.
"I've got no reason to buy in this market right now," analyst and trader Stephen Schork said. "It all hinges on demand, and demand is rather lagging."
Will consumers eventually see gas at $1 a gallon again?
"That seems remote," Schork said. "You'd need to see crude below $20 (a barrel) before you could start talking about $1 a gallon at the pump."
The wild swings in crude prices this year — from a record $147 a barrel to below $40 a barrel — has been especially hard on heating oil companies, small gas distributors and refiners that are selling fuel bought earlier this year when prices were high.
"They're getting whipsawed in the market," Schork said. "They don't have the deep pockets to withstand the volatility."
On Monday, Ogden, Utah-based oil company Flying J Inc. and two of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a steep drop in oil prices and the lack of available financing due to the disruption in credit markets.
Flying J operates 250 travel plazas and fuel stations in 41 states and six Canadian provinces.
"They won't be the last marketer or refiner that may have to go the bankruptcy route in the next year or so," Kloza said. "It's been pretty rugged out there."
OPEC said last week it would slash production by 2.2 million barrels a day, its largest cutback ever, reducing the amount of oil produced each day by 4 million barrels in all when earlier cuts are included.
"It will take time for output cuts to flow through, but there's some doubt about whether there will be full compliance," said Toby Hassall, an analyst at investment firm Commodity Warrants Australia. "I wouldn't be surprised if OPEC cut again in January or February. There's been quite a significant demand side deterioration."
Meanwhile, Iraq's Oil Ministry announced it will open its second licensing round for developing its vast oil and gas fields. Iraq sits on more than 115 billion barrels of oil, but decades of war, U.N. sanctions, violence and sabotage have battered its oil industry.
On the Nymex Tuesday, gasoline futures fell 2.1 cents to 86.5 cents a gallon. Heating oil fell less than a penny to $1.339 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery jumped 45.8 cents to $5.752 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, February Brent crude tumbled $1.02 to $40.43 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Link Removed
Oil prices tumbled below $38 a barrel Tuesday on fresh evidence of weakness in the U.S. housing market and a shrinking gross domestic product that suggests the recession may be worsening.
A report by the Commerce Department showed that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while new home prices dropped by the biggest amount in eight months.
"The energy markets are reacting first and foremost to bad economic news, and it seems like they're almost waiting for something bad to occur," said oil analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover.
A steady outpouring of gloomy economic news has pushed to the background events that over the summer may have led to price spikes, like OPEC's announcement this month of unprecedented production cuts, Beutel said.
Prices have fallen 73 percent since July, with massive job layoffs and weak consumer spending eating away at energy use.
"Boy, it really looks ugly for the start of 2009," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service.
"It's really difficult to find something between now and inauguration time that says people are going to feel better, they're going to drive more, they're going to ship more packages," Kloza said.
Light sweet crude for February delivery fell 78 cents, to $39.13 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices fell as low as $37.79 earlier in the day.
Overnight, the February contract fell $2.45 to settle at $39.91 a barrel after Toyota Motor Corp. projected its first-ever operating loss since it began reporting such numbers in 1941.
Economists now believe a small decline in economic activity in the third quarter has worsened significantly.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, declined at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the July-September quarter. Corporate profits fell 1.2 percent.
Some economists believe the economy's decline in the October-December period could be as large as 6 percent. If so, that would be the worst quarterly drop since 1982.
The pain appears to have spread through almost every level of the economy. On Tuesday, shares of card maker American Greetings Corp. sank to their lowest level in 21 years after the company reported it swung to a loss in its third quarter.
With at least 2 million jobs lost since the beginning of the year and an economy that continues to deteriorate, Americans have drastically cut down on driving.
The Federal Highway Administration reported this month that Americans drove more than 100 billion fewer miles between November 2007 and October 2008, compared with the same period a year before.
Retail gasoline prices dropped for the 23rd week, reaching a national average of $1.653 a gallon as of Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Gasoline futures on the Nymex tumbled as low as 82 cents a gallon Tuesday.
"I've got no reason to buy in this market right now," analyst and trader Stephen Schork said. "It all hinges on demand, and demand is rather lagging."
Will consumers eventually see gas at $1 a gallon again?
"That seems remote," Schork said. "You'd need to see crude below $20 (a barrel) before you could start talking about $1 a gallon at the pump."
The wild swings in crude prices this year — from a record $147 a barrel to below $40 a barrel — has been especially hard on heating oil companies, small gas distributors and refiners that are selling fuel bought earlier this year when prices were high.
"They're getting whipsawed in the market," Schork said. "They don't have the deep pockets to withstand the volatility."
On Monday, Ogden, Utah-based oil company Flying J Inc. and two of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a steep drop in oil prices and the lack of available financing due to the disruption in credit markets.
Flying J operates 250 travel plazas and fuel stations in 41 states and six Canadian provinces.
"They won't be the last marketer or refiner that may have to go the bankruptcy route in the next year or so," Kloza said. "It's been pretty rugged out there."
OPEC said last week it would slash production by 2.2 million barrels a day, its largest cutback ever, reducing the amount of oil produced each day by 4 million barrels in all when earlier cuts are included.
"It will take time for output cuts to flow through, but there's some doubt about whether there will be full compliance," said Toby Hassall, an analyst at investment firm Commodity Warrants Australia. "I wouldn't be surprised if OPEC cut again in January or February. There's been quite a significant demand side deterioration."
Meanwhile, Iraq's Oil Ministry announced it will open its second licensing round for developing its vast oil and gas fields. Iraq sits on more than 115 billion barrels of oil, but decades of war, U.N. sanctions, violence and sabotage have battered its oil industry.
On the Nymex Tuesday, gasoline futures fell 2.1 cents to 86.5 cents a gallon. Heating oil fell less than a penny to $1.339 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery jumped 45.8 cents to $5.752 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, February Brent crude tumbled $1.02 to $40.43 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
LVLouisCyphre
Obama is a mack daddy!
It's creeping back up here. It was $1.69 a few days ago, now it's $1.71.
Big Gay Al
New member
On the East side of Lansing, $1.489.
sambo42xa
USA Carry Supporter
Still dropping here in Southern, NH. The lowest I've seen is $1.49. Home heating oil was at a steady $2.14 for about one month. Now, as of this past Saturday it was $2.09. I paid $3.59/gl last October.
I see the gas come down about every 3-5 days but the oi price stays for almost a month.
I see the gas come down about every 3-5 days but the oi price stays for almost a month.
Southwest Michigan 1.49 might fill up today. CNN said the price of a barrel might go up. and with 3 vehicles to take care of might as well top them off and be good for a couple more weeks.
had to edit. went to get gas earlier two out of the three had gone up to 165 filled up two for 149.
had to edit. went to get gas earlier two out of the three had gone up to 165 filled up two for 149.
Last edited:
tattedupboy
Thank God I'm alive!
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/106398/As-Prices-Rise,-Some-See-$2-Gas
The five-month slide in gasoline prices has come to an abrupt halt, with gasoline rising by several cents in recent days amid indicators that the national average could jump to $2 a gallon or higher this spring.
A broad shift in the psychology of the oil market seems to be under way. Oil prices are up more than 40 percent since they bottomed out just below $33 a barrel on Dec. 19. The reversal, after months of declines, suggests that production cuts by the OPEC cartel may be having an effect, along with growing tensions in the Middle East and the sentiment by traders that the precipitous drop in prices went too far.
For six days in a row, drivers have been paying a few more cents a gallon than they did before Christmas. The change has been almost imperceptible for drivers who remember prices soaring above $4 a gallon last summer.
But if the price of gasoline continues rising, it may become another headache for consumers worried about their jobs and the dropping value of their homes and investments.
Oil prices are up about 25 percent in the last week alone, in part because of the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Rising oil prices have helped push the wholesale price of gasoline up by 40 percent since Dec. 24, leading to predictions by energy experts that retail gasoline prices will spike by as much as 25 percent in coming weeks.
"A lot of people are talking about dollar-a-gallon gasoline, when the wholesale market seems to be pointing to $2 a gallon," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. As of Monday, regular gasoline was selling for $1.67 a gallon, on average, up from a recent low of $1.62 on Dec. 30.
The decline in gasoline prices has offered badly needed relief to consumers. A driver buying 50 gallons of gasoline a month has been saving $2 a day compared to a year ago, and $4 a day compared to the price peak in July. For the national economy as a whole, the savings came to around $1 billion a day, according to the Oil Price Information Service.
Among the big winners have been businesses like shipping companies with large transportation costs, commuters who drive long distances to work and consumers with moderate incomes who spend a relatively high percentage of their paychecks on fuel.
The summer's high prices prompted Americans to cut their driving, and the drastic downturn of the economy this fall led to the huge decline in oil prices. But with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cutting production, and with refineries trimming their output of gasoline, supply and demand may be coming back into balance.
Refineries have cut the number of barrels of crude oil they processed weekly to 14.5 million during December, from 15.4 million, according to the Energy Department. The tighter supplies are putting pressure on retail prices.
Analysts say the decline in gasoline use may have bottomed out, barring a further big downturn in the economy. MasterCard's SpendingPulse data service, which measures both cash and credit card sales of gasoline, had shown volume declines as sharp as 9 percent during some weeks in the fall. But that number has narrowed considerably as prices have fallen, and one recent week even showed a slight increase in gasoline sales compared to the same week the year before.
"There will be a real spike in gasoline prices coming in the next four to six weeks," predicted Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution, a brokerage and research firm. "We are witnessing a sea change in energy market sentiment as Americans appear to be returning to some of their old driving habits just as geopolitical risk is once again a factor in crude prices."
Oil prices jumped more than 5 percent on Monday alone to close at $48.81 in New York trading, as fighting continued in the Gaza Strip and Iran's OPEC representative said the cartel would hold a special meeting in February. The cartel decided last month to cut output by 2.2 million barrels, on top of earlier cutbacks.
The AAA auto club reported that the average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline on Monday was $1.67, up nearly a penny and a half from the day before. That still compares favorably to the national average of $3.10 a gallon a year ago and the record high national average price of $4.11 last July 17.
In contrast to gasoline, diesel prices have not yet bottomed out. A gallon cost $2.40 on Monday, down a fraction of a penny from the day before.
Mr. Kloza said he thought gasoline prices probably hit a bottom last month. He said gasoline prices in California, which frequently leads the rest of the nation in gasoline price swings, bottomed the first week of December and had been rising since.
While gasoline prices felt like a great weight to many consumers on the way up, they have not been an economic cure-all on the way down.
"In comparison with between roughly a 40 percent drop in the stock market and a 20 percent drop in home values, the drop in gasoline prices is just a drop in the bucket," said Adam J. Robinson, director of commodities at Armored Wolf L.L.C., a hedge fund.
Mr. Robinson said he was unconvinced that oil and gasoline prices would go back up for long. "I think it is too soon to call a bottom in oil or gasoline because demand is falling faster than OPEC is cutting," he said.
The five-month slide in gasoline prices has come to an abrupt halt, with gasoline rising by several cents in recent days amid indicators that the national average could jump to $2 a gallon or higher this spring.
A broad shift in the psychology of the oil market seems to be under way. Oil prices are up more than 40 percent since they bottomed out just below $33 a barrel on Dec. 19. The reversal, after months of declines, suggests that production cuts by the OPEC cartel may be having an effect, along with growing tensions in the Middle East and the sentiment by traders that the precipitous drop in prices went too far.
For six days in a row, drivers have been paying a few more cents a gallon than they did before Christmas. The change has been almost imperceptible for drivers who remember prices soaring above $4 a gallon last summer.
But if the price of gasoline continues rising, it may become another headache for consumers worried about their jobs and the dropping value of their homes and investments.
Oil prices are up about 25 percent in the last week alone, in part because of the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Rising oil prices have helped push the wholesale price of gasoline up by 40 percent since Dec. 24, leading to predictions by energy experts that retail gasoline prices will spike by as much as 25 percent in coming weeks.
"A lot of people are talking about dollar-a-gallon gasoline, when the wholesale market seems to be pointing to $2 a gallon," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. As of Monday, regular gasoline was selling for $1.67 a gallon, on average, up from a recent low of $1.62 on Dec. 30.
The decline in gasoline prices has offered badly needed relief to consumers. A driver buying 50 gallons of gasoline a month has been saving $2 a day compared to a year ago, and $4 a day compared to the price peak in July. For the national economy as a whole, the savings came to around $1 billion a day, according to the Oil Price Information Service.
Among the big winners have been businesses like shipping companies with large transportation costs, commuters who drive long distances to work and consumers with moderate incomes who spend a relatively high percentage of their paychecks on fuel.
The summer's high prices prompted Americans to cut their driving, and the drastic downturn of the economy this fall led to the huge decline in oil prices. But with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cutting production, and with refineries trimming their output of gasoline, supply and demand may be coming back into balance.
Refineries have cut the number of barrels of crude oil they processed weekly to 14.5 million during December, from 15.4 million, according to the Energy Department. The tighter supplies are putting pressure on retail prices.
Analysts say the decline in gasoline use may have bottomed out, barring a further big downturn in the economy. MasterCard's SpendingPulse data service, which measures both cash and credit card sales of gasoline, had shown volume declines as sharp as 9 percent during some weeks in the fall. But that number has narrowed considerably as prices have fallen, and one recent week even showed a slight increase in gasoline sales compared to the same week the year before.
"There will be a real spike in gasoline prices coming in the next four to six weeks," predicted Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution, a brokerage and research firm. "We are witnessing a sea change in energy market sentiment as Americans appear to be returning to some of their old driving habits just as geopolitical risk is once again a factor in crude prices."
Oil prices jumped more than 5 percent on Monday alone to close at $48.81 in New York trading, as fighting continued in the Gaza Strip and Iran's OPEC representative said the cartel would hold a special meeting in February. The cartel decided last month to cut output by 2.2 million barrels, on top of earlier cutbacks.
The AAA auto club reported that the average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline on Monday was $1.67, up nearly a penny and a half from the day before. That still compares favorably to the national average of $3.10 a gallon a year ago and the record high national average price of $4.11 last July 17.
In contrast to gasoline, diesel prices have not yet bottomed out. A gallon cost $2.40 on Monday, down a fraction of a penny from the day before.
Mr. Kloza said he thought gasoline prices probably hit a bottom last month. He said gasoline prices in California, which frequently leads the rest of the nation in gasoline price swings, bottomed the first week of December and had been rising since.
While gasoline prices felt like a great weight to many consumers on the way up, they have not been an economic cure-all on the way down.
"In comparison with between roughly a 40 percent drop in the stock market and a 20 percent drop in home values, the drop in gasoline prices is just a drop in the bucket," said Adam J. Robinson, director of commodities at Armored Wolf L.L.C., a hedge fund.
Mr. Robinson said he was unconvinced that oil and gasoline prices would go back up for long. "I think it is too soon to call a bottom in oil or gasoline because demand is falling faster than OPEC is cutting," he said.
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