Sunday, April 12, 2009

Where will they lead... gas prices are increasing.

I was online searching for a topic to blog about and on yahoo news I saw this title: “Average U.S. gasoline price rises 10 cents a gallon.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090412/us_nm/us_usgasoline_survey. I wasn’t really surprised when I found this article because I had notice the increased in prices on my drives to the gym, which I soon regretted not filing up my tank sooner. I ended up filling my tank at $1.95/gallon. The article states that the price is not as high as it was a year ago but the 10 cent increase on prices is related to the warmer weather, the warmer the weather the lower the required limit on vapor pressure.

Prices in the summer are always high in comparison to the prices over the year; my question is how low the prices of gas will stay in comparison to last year’s prices. The article states that the price should not surpass last year’s high of $4.12 “unless there’s a crude oil shock.” I’ll be living in Houston this summer, which means longer commutes to get anywhere in the city; thus, increasing my spending budget on gas. So I’m curious to know by how high gas prices will be this summer.

2 comments:

Annette said...

The recent price increase is also related to an increase in the price of oil, which in the grand scheme of things, is beneficial to a lot of us, especially in Texas. This slight increase in the price of oil denotes an improvement in the economy. When oil was at it's all time low in the past few months, oil companies were scrambling to re-do budgets while laying off the minimum number of people and a lot of people don't realize this. Although the <$2/gallon price of gas has been a nice relief in comparison to last summer, it's more or less the opposite of a burden to the economy and those of us linked to the oil industry. I don't know if anyone knows just how high gas prices will go this summer, but just know that these small increases are a sign that the economy could be starting to turn around, just maybe.

Anonymous said...

Good point, netnet. While we generally don't like high fuel prices, they do benefit those who work directly and indirectly with the oil & gas industry. A lot of my friends from undergrad work for oil & gas companies and saw at their respective companies how low oil prices affected business. People were getting laid off, vacations encouraged, etc. We often forget that it's people like you and me that work in these industries and can be affected in a different manner.