| FINDING DEAL$ ON GA$OLINE: |
Posted on 04/11/2006 2:29:03 AM PDT by Crackingham
Summer driving will be expensive, with gasoline costs likely to stay high after jumping nearly 20 cents over the past two weeks. The cost of gasoline averages $2.68 nationwide for a gallon of regular. Some analysts say motorists may pay $3 a gallon this summer if there are unusual disruptions in supply. The Energy Department was to release its summer outlook for motor fuel prices at a news conference Tuesday.
Prices at the pump have been climbing since February when the cost of regular grade gasoline averaged $2.25 a gallon. The average price of $2.68 a gallon last week is 40 cents a gallon higher than a year ago. Analysts cited high crude oil costs. The price of light sweet crude for May delivery settled at $68.74 a barrel Monday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close since Aug. 30, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina shut down Gulf of Mexico production. But there are other factors driving up prices of motor fuels.
Driving remains heavy with demand for gasoline expected not to ease much this summer, according to analysts. And refineries are moving away from using MTBE, the gasoline additive that has been used in much of the country to help curtail air pollution, but which also has been found to contaminate drinking water supplies.
Three of the biggest refiners — Valero Energy Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Shell Oil Co. — said they will stop putting MTBE into gasoline beginning May 5. Valero estimates that will shrink the nation's gasoline supply by 145,000 barrels a day. The oil industry has cited the shift away from MTBE as a major reason for gasoline price increases.
At a congressional hearing last month, Guy Caruso, head of the government's Energy Information Administration, said about 130,000 barrels of ethanol, a substitute additive for MTBE, will be needed. That's about 50 percent of current output.
The demand for more ethanol has caused the price of the corn-based additive to surge to about $2.75 a gallon, an increase of about 50 cents a gallon. The additives account for about 10 per cent of gasoline volume in areas where they are used, so a 50-cent increase in ethanol translates into about a nickel a gallon boost in the fuel's cost to motorists.
LOL, and when MTBE had to be added, it was said that was the cause for a spike in gasoline prices.
It had been my understanding that MTBE had been removed some time ago. It's been known that MTBE was a severe problem for about ten to fifteen years now. Thanks environmentalists. Let's hear it for irrational solutions that are worse than the problem.
| FINDING DEAL$ ON GA$OLINE: |
There'll always be an excuse, and most will be just as lame.
....and in other news the sun will rise in the morning followed by sunset just after dusk....
Our consumer-based economy is driven by readily-available, reliable energy-- choke that off, and we'll be back to using one rotary dial phone in the dining room, watching one TV, and driving one car per family-- probably a Hudson Hornet...
We need to
1) end the nonsensical ban on offshore drilling off California and Florida
2) build a lot of next-generation nuclear power plants, not just for electricity, but for any process requiring heat, power, or steam.
3) end Jimmy Carter's idiotic ban on recycling nuclear waste, and reprocess the stuff rather than fighting over where to bury it. Europe has done it for decades.
4) use the 300-500 years worth of coal we have on our own land, using the new clean-coal technology.
5) and finally, there's nothing wrong with conservation- but you can't conserve your way out of a shortage- we need to get serious about this before we get strangled by a bunch of petty thieves and dictators who don't like us much.
My tongue-in-cheek collection of energy-related links:
Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Click the picture:
And note, and note well-- the first reply to this post ( when gas was less than $1.50 a gallon ) was derisive... so, who's laughing now?
In a way it makes me glad my Camaro died. 12 mpg wasn’t making it.
Now I have a brand new Tiboron. Its 0-60 is nearly as good as the Camaro’s, it handles better it the turns, and gets over 30 mpg (actual) combined city/highway.
I saw pictures of a flooded New Orleans with images of Gas station signs reading $2.49 per gal. So much for that excuse!
***LOL, and when MTBE had to be added, it was said that was the cause for a spike in gasoline prices.****
You remember that too huh??
the energy policy act of 2005 drops the federal mandate
that RFG gasoline contain oxygen,
so an oxygenate such as MTBE is not needed
in many areas, effective May 6, 2006.
with that said, is ethanol going to be used in Texas?
point taken!
:)
Can someone, anyone, tell me if there is a single initiative to build more refineries in the US? How about nuke plants? After last years' panic, it seems that would be a front burner issue. The upcoming hurricane season will be no picnic.
Tru dat.
I believe in the Supply and Demand concept but at the same time I find it hard to believe that the price of a gallon of gas can rise fifty cents in the matter of 3 days but it takes 5 months to see it go down by only half of that increase.
Looks like the excuses this summer will be many. Oil is still around Katrina prices. The winter is leaving. I remember the freezing winter for an excuse for high oil prices. When will it end?
You should not have posted that here. Many here believe all capitalists are pure as the driven snow and they are not influenced at all by greed.
Good luck.
LOL! I've seen what can happen, it was funny when they were doing it to someone else. =D
If we started to convert that to oil like the Germans during WW2 or the South Africans during apartheid we would have OVER 100yrs of $1.50 a gallon gas.
You must have the little 4-banger Tiburon as it looks like the 6-cylinder version is rated at about the same gas mileage as my 400hp GTO.
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