Gasoline prices fall for sixth straight week: National Average is $2.250/gallon, $0.299 higher YTD

The El Paso Times ^ | November 19, 2005

[new yorker 77]

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The national average has fallen 68.2 cents since Oct. 7 to $2.250, but is still 29.9 cents higher than last year.

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[old_sage_says]

Regular gasoline priced at $1.799 in Narrows, VA, on US 460 near the WV border.

[SierraWasp]

$1.77!!! Now yer tawlkin, backhoe!!! What a great story, but I was expectin ya ta tell me whatcha paid per gallon back in the day when ya left the terialur atcher BIL's place!!!

By the way... I thought only vigilantes in GA had vignettes an other stuff like dat! (grin)(partsa this here reply was written in openly sluvenly phonetic code)

[backhoe]

Lordy, when did Robert "borrow" my trailer? 1997? 1998?
( Just to "help him move his tractor" from his house [ halfway to Waycross ] to his Mom's house [ halfway to Jesup... ])

I guess gas was about a dollar a gallon then- but of course, when I learned to drive it was $0.25, so it all looks pricey to me.

Sort of off-topic ( but then again, not really )-- I still remember an old general store up in the Crescent region that had the glass-topped gas pumps-- you used a hand crank to fill the jugs, and gravity fed the hose. The amount of gas you drained from the jugs was etched on the sides. And you could fill up on the change in your pocket.

[john_baldacci_is_a_commie]

OK< So why is gas with all that tax cheaper than Home Heating oil with no tax on it?

[Smokin' Joe]

People can only cut heating oil usage so much, and then they are not heating. Diesel fuel comes from the same fraction of the barrel of crude as fuel oil, and demand for diesel is not as elastic as the demand for gasoline. Although a lot of private vehicles use diesel, the major applications remain commercial, and primarily for long haul freight and passenger transportation, agriculture, trains, and even oil rigs. That demand remains more constant than, say gasoline, which comes from a different fraction of crude oil, and primarily powers private passenger vehicles and light trucks.

Home heating oil demand is increasing with winter. It is a one-two punch, price wise (notice the price of diesel is staying up, also).

When the price of gas went up, people found a way to cut back on how much they used, hence the elasticity of demand is greater. As a result, the short supply of gasoline and the price spike have been shorter in duration than that for diesel and heating oil.

[john_baldacci_is_a_commie]

Joe, you are talking in circles, kind of like the evolutionist, let me just thank you for your help and let it drop there.

[Smokin' Joe]

Please let me try again. Crude oil is made up of many different hydrocarbons, as a rule. In one barrel of oil, about half will refine out to gasoline. Another part of that barrel will refine into diesel fuel or fuel oil, etc. You can't get a full barrel of gasoline from the barrel of oil, just the fraction.

Because the refinery schedules were messed up, the production of fuel oil was interrupted. So was shipping any in from elsewhere. Now, diesel fuel users, (mostly commercial) and folks who heat with fuel oil are competing for the same part of the barrel of oil being refined.

Unlike gasoline, people heating their homes can only cut back a little, drivers can refuse to drive, carpool, cut down their trips, etc., but the heat has to be on. Diesel fuel users (railroads, long haul truckers, etc.) can only cut back so much or they are out of business.

The squeeze makes the price of both fuel oil and diesel fuel higher than gasoline (before taxes), which comes from a different part of the barrel of oil, and of which people drastically reduced their consumption when the price went up during the immediate aftermath of Katrina and Rita.