Well, it's more common for sudden events to reduce supply rather than the reverse. But prices do in fact fall quickly at times; note the rapid drop as refineries recovered from the hurricanes:
While"Big Oil"might not be guilty of"Price Gouging",I have noticed that while gasoline prices can(and do)rise precipitously,they come down assisted by a very large PARACHUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That may be the oil companies taking advanage...or it may be that as prices go down at the barrel, they are already anticipating the next rise (with demand so high in the developing world it's inevitable) and milking us for the money to pay for it so we don't have $4 gass next time.
I'm not a Big Oil fan, I just think that the pols are insulting us, and that they had no concern for the jobs of American oil workers when oil prices were low and small companies were dying.
Well, it's more common for sudden events to reduce supply rather than the reverse. But prices do in fact fall quickly at times; note the rapid drop as refineries recovered from the hurricanes: