Posted on 08/09/2011 9:04:29 PM PDT by djf
Oil is down almost $20 a barrel in the last two weeks.
Is the gas price falling for anyone here?
I filled up about ten days ago for $3.79 a gallon and just filled up again for $3.79 a gallon and I was a little fried about it...
SB, from my calculations, about $3.20 a gallon.
What say you, FReepers?
I filled up at $3.959 on 8/3 at my “home station” and it’s gone to $3.899, $3.839, then just tonight $3.799, here in the western ‘burbs of Chicago.
Not always, there is just too much else going on between the barrel the pump. Use the link I provided upthread to create a historical chart and see for yourself.
Here in PA. gas is $3.70 and has been for a month...
when oil per barrel increases the pumps go up before the news is off the air...
when the price per barrel comes down...takes for ever for the pumps to reflect that...
they are all crooks...
I filled up tonight at $3.41. That’s down by around 20 cents.
Great link — thanks. What is interesting is the alignment of the oil price and gas price on the chart. The appearance is that oil is higher priced than gasoline — but this appears to be simply because of how the graph’s axis are chosen. It does show that gasoline price is less volatile than oil price and that gasoline pricing lags oil pricing, but not by as much as I have read elsewhere.
That’s the way business works. At least, if you want to stay in business.
The vendor raises the price of his product immediately, to reflect the replacement cost of the now higher priced product. He’s not going to lower the sale price of the gas already in storage tanks, unless he wants to lose money. That’s why prices are quick to go up, but sticky on the way down. Figure about 2.5c per $1 oil price change to see how much gasoline will go up or down.
St. Louis area $3.19 yesterday
Southeast Missouri $3.33
let me update my post, St. Louis $3.13 now. I believe last week it was in the $3.50’s
Read post 46.
If you pay $3 for widgets that you sell for $3.25, and your widget supplier informs you that he will only charge you $2.50 for your next order, you aren’t going to drop the widget prices on inventory you already bought for $3.
Now if the widget supplier informs you that $4 will be the cost of the next widgets, and you allocate x amount of money towards filling your inventory (or tank in this case), it’s necessary to raise prices to cover the future purchase to fill the tank or else you’ll have to pull extra money from somewhere else to pay for the increase in price of your next order.
Convenience stores have to operate this way because the gas price is unpredictable. You don’t know which direction it’s going to go and if they try to lower prices before the next delivery of oil they could be caught with their pants down if the commodity prices reverse direction and go higher.
Here in So Cal when oil goes up 2 bucks a barrel...gas goes up 5 cents a gallon. When oil goes down $20 a barrel it goes down 2 cents a gallon...
Regular was $3.69 for the last three weeks...today it is $3.67
See my post 49.
If you ran a gas station the way you think it should be run (following market prices in both directions), you wouldn’t be in business very long.
see tagline.
Maybe you can explain, “Should be.”
“The price of oil per barrel doesn’t have much to do with the price of gasoline at the pump.”
Not true.
“The price of gasoline at the pump does not immediately and exactly mirror the price of oil per barrel” would be a more accurate way of stating it.
Yes gas prices have fallen a smidge.
Obama is very unhappy.
The price is all of 15 cents or so down in Bay County Florida. The decline could also be related to the decline of the tourist season.
Something not mentioned yet is that the price of oil is only one component in the price of gasoline at the pump. You have to pay to get the crude oil to a refinery, then refine it, then additives costs, then transportation to your local outlet, plus local, state & national taxes, plus dealer profit. So while crude oil prices are a significant component of the retail price, it’s not a 1:1 relationship. So, a hypothetical 20% drop in the price of crude oil might ultimately only result in a 10% drop in the price of gasoline locally.
The price at my local station (in SC) dropped .08¢ this weekend. I filled up on Monday for $3.37 a gallon. I saw one other station with the same price, but most stations were still around $3.45-3.50. One of them was $3.60.
'Live Free or Die'...pffft!
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