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Posted on 04/06/2008 11:05:38 AM PDT by kellynla
NEW YORK — Retail gas prices surged to another milestone, rising above $3.30 a gallon Friday, and appear poised to rise further in coming weeks as supplies tighten.
Oil prices, meanwhile, supported the gas price rally by jumping more than $2 a barrel after a dismal employment report sent the dollar lower.
At the pump, gas prices rose 1.4 cents overnight to a national average of $3.303 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That's the latest in a series of records, and about 60 cents higher than a year ago.
In Ventura County, the average price of regular unleaded hit a record $3.68 a gallon Friday, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California.
During the past week, prices in the county have been climbing by a few cents per day.
A few weeks ago, Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said he expected prices to fall as oil speculators backed off.
Now, he's not so sure.
"We could very likely see $4," he said. "It's going to be painful."
As investors are fleeing to commodities such as oil, gold, wheat and corn, people are starting to look at Washington, D.C., to curb speculation, Kyser said.
"You have speculators globally now," Kyser said.
"This is going to be a tough time for anybody who has to use an oil-based product. We've already seen chaos in the aviation industry, with Aloha and ATA going out of business."
While oil's surge above $100 over the past month has boosted gas prices so far this year, analysts now expect gas prices to continue rising regardless of what direction crude takes. The Energy Department expects prices to peak near $3.50 a gallon later in the spring, but many analysts predict that the spike could approach $4.
That's because gasoline supplies are falling, in part because producers are cutting back on output of the fuel because of the high cost of crude — the more expensive crude is, the more refiners have to pay and the lower their profits are.
They're also in the process of switching from producing winter grades of gasoline to the less polluting but more expensive grade of fuel required in the summer.
"That cuts back on some of the supply and helps to pump up the price," said Mike Pina, spokesman for AAA.
The margin between the price that refiners pay for crude and receive for selling the products they make from it is about $11 to $12 a barrel right now, according to the Oil Price Information Service.
However, that margin has occasionally slipped into negative territory in recent weeks and is well below margins of $37 a barrel that refiners earned last spring.
In futures trading, meanwhile, oil futures rose Friday after the Labor Department said employers cut payrolls by 80,000 jobs last month, much more than analysts had expected.
The unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent.
That news sent the dollar lower and pushed light, sweet crude for May delivery up $2.40 to settle at $106.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gasoline futures for May delivery rose 3.24 cents to settle at $2.7567 a gallon.
Gasoline futures were also boosted Friday by a fire that shut down part of a refinery in Torrance.
‘As investors are fleeing to commodities such as oil, gold, wheat and corn, people are starting to look at Washington, D.C., to curb speculation, Kyser said”
Now why would Washington do that? I bet if someone would start connecting some dots, it might be found that alot of these speculators are tied with the Democrats. Soros to begin with would be one.
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Remember to thank the spineless republocants while you’re at it. We are the blind leading the blind.
Ping to Post 28? I’m sorry but I can’t read it worth a damn.
Ping to post #85
Ping to post 85. PSA stickers for the gas pumps in your area reminding everyone gas prices are the Dems fault. But don’t let their video cameras catch you.
Does it pay well to be a seminar poster Willie Green?"
Go pound sand you idiot. The only one spouting an agenda is your stupid lame brain. You're like a skipping record, more oil, more oil, more oil, more oil, supply is not driving the cost of gas up. I provided you with several news stories, you've provided me with your opinion, stupid as it may be.
Does it pay well to be a dumb-ass???? You've added exactly bubkus to this discussion. Now go away before your Mommy grounds you from the internet.
Too bad. That would take strong leadership, willing to send a message. We don’t have that kind of leadership.
They’ll keep raising the price of fuel, causing all other prices to rise as they are now, causing all kinds of economic hardship across the board.
Lets look at who’s making money off this. The oil industry, the A-rabs, the Feds, and local state governments in the form of taxes. They know as well as I do, if this keeps up, even many of the people renting wont be able to pay their rents, pay their bills. People will stop buying all kinds of crap, hurting most everyone economically, tourism, restaurants and big ticket items will only be afforded to the well off.
I think they want to see how much they can squeeze out of everyone, until the whole game totally collapses, and if prices continue upward, it will.
I think it's speculation for investment's sake that is driving it up. Profits have to be found somewhere and the money that was going into the housing markets are going into commodities now. Just a little snippet from a story that I found:
Crude oil futures had the highest volume of commodity futures contracts from January - October 2007 at 101.5 million contracts traded. That was an increase of 79 percent over the previous year.
“At least he might, where the two Democrats will never.”
Naw, they’ve probably already seen the light. They just won’t do anything because environmental protection is the new smokescreen big government RATs like Hitlery and Obama are hiding behind while they expand the government to deal with the “problem”.
Too bad people are so brainwashed by the envirowhackos and “global warming” that such facts go in one ear and out the other.
Higher gass cost, couples with the higher cost of transport for food, drives prices higher, driving the value of the dollar lower, and in essence pissing off a lot of people who can't afford a rise in either and still make the bills.
I am wondering if someone with that global kid of power to control the markets is it work. *cough*Soros*cough*
And all those Republicans like Norm Coleman, Katherine Harris, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen get off scott free?
You have my permission to add Norm Coleman, Katherine Harris, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to those stickers if you so choose.
I supplied just as much fact to this argument as you have you worthless seminar poster.
How much are you being paid by the wacko environmentalists?
Your silly news stories gleaned from agenda driven sources mean nothing.
Go back to daily Kos and Democratic Underground if you want your marxist delusions to be appreciated.
Maybe you can post your way into an economic advisory post for Mugabe or Chavez.
Good work, this should rattle a liberals.
Thank you.
A guy at work last week told me that someone had punched holes in the dual tanks of a neighbor’s older F-150 and made off with almost 40 gallons of gas.
The government controls and limits the exploration, drilling and refining of the product. Source countries control the production, shipping and fix prices. Oil companies make record profits after rumor, natural disasters, and during war.
I don't see anything normal about the oil market.
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