A little earlier than expected but we are at, or have been through the historic low for gasoline. The article mentions the bay area and for those of us living here, this is not much of an event. My personal and informal survey has us up about $0.25 from the low over the last month or so. Going to be difficult to predict what will happen but with oil going from the high 30s/bbl to the high 40s/bbl, I guess we will all once again be watching gas slowly edge back up. Bummer.

WASHINGTON — Gasoline prices have risen for the first time in 16 weeks as higher crude oil costs were reflected at the pump, the government said on Monday.
The national price for regular unleaded gasoline jumped 7.1 cents over the last week to $1.68 a gallon, but was still down $1.43 from a year ago, the federal Energy Information Administration said in its weekly survey of service stations.

Even though fuel costs increased, it was still the lowest pump price during the first week of a new year since 2004, according to the Energy Department's analytical arm.

Still, gasoline prices are up because of higher crude oil costs, which have soared from about $35 a barrel since Israel took military action against Gaza on Dec. 27 to $48 a barrel in trading on Monday at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

An Iranian military commander has called on Islamic oil producers to cut supplies to Israel's supporters in Europe and the United States, though an OPEC source said that was unlikely to happen.

In the EIA's weekly survey, gasoline was most expensive on the West Coast at $1.85 a gallon, up 5.6 cents from last week. San Francisco had the highest city price at $1.91, up 6.4 cents.

The Rocky Mountain states had the lowest regional price at $1.50 a gallon, down 1.1 cents. Houston had the lowest city pump price, up 3 cents at $1.47.

The EIA also reported gasoline prices were up 17.9 cents at $1.87 in Chicago, up 6.2 cents at $1.87 in Seattle, up 23.7 cents at $1.84 in Cleveland, up 5.3 cents at $1.84 in Los Angeles, up 2.1 cents at $1.79 in Miami, down 1.2 cents at $1.64 in New York City and up 2.1 cents at $1.62 in Boston.

Separately, the average price for diesel fuel declined 3.6 cents to $2.29 a gallon, the lowest since June 2005 and down $1.09 from a year earlier, the EIA said.

The New England states again had the most expensive diesel at $2.60 a gallon, down 4.2 cents. The Rocky Mountain region had the cheapest diesel fuel at $2.22, down 3.5 cents.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...a_N.htm?csp=34

At least I have had the notion of getting a diesel beaten out of me. The euro high tech diesels are slowly starting to arrive but between the premium pricing and the differential for diesel over premium, just doesn't make economic sense. Of course that will be construed as Americans simple refusal to want to own a diesel which, at least in my case, is simply not true. But I am not going to spend more to drive one.

 

went up a cple cents here in NY. i would still rather pay 2.09 for prem instead of 4.60.

 

I wonder if this has anything to do with the tension in the middle east right now...

 

Good excuse as any, even if there's no significant oil in Gaza strip.

 

Yup, it has alot to do with it........it's just another excuse.....

 

I'd still kill for those gas prices. We haven't seen regular drop below $2.15 yet and prices are now going up. Anything under $2.00 a gallon is still pretty cheap.

 

Yes the prices are going up but how is the most expensive 1.92? When i read these things i wonder if they ever look at Chicago its 2.10+( that's the lowest i have seen) not that I am proud of it. Every article that I have read since gas was 5$,says one city is the most expensive when in Chicago its always about 20-40 cents more. Cook County is sooooooooooo expensive.
V-tak civic DB ftw.

 

It bumped here some but nothing crazy, about 10 cents or so.

 

nothing crazy NOW but when it was 3.50+ a gallon, u was crying lol.

 

No conspiracy. Price went down too far, too fast and is just recovering to seek its true level. Concensus is it will settle in the $50 range short term, slowly rising to $75+ as the economy improves. And higher prices long term. The world will continue to run on dino juice for the next 50 years or so, regardless of what the greenies may want. Windmills, solar, or other types of clean energy are just pipe dreams at the present time and will only supplement a tiny fraction of the energy required. The whole idea of plug in hybrids is just a dream; it will only be a money losing niche product.

 

The article caught my eye yesterday as most times when something winds up in print it is anywhere from several days to several decades behind reality. I was thinking about gas prices driving in this morning. For those of you who don't live in the great state of Kaleefornia and particularly the silicon valley area, you should have some joy at our prices. Looking at the stations I usually go to, we went up $0.10/gallon over night. About the cheapest premium I could see was 2.09 driving home last night. The same station is 2.19 this morning.

What is going on in the Mid East has some impact psychologically and absolutely no impact in reality. Neither Israel nor Gaza have anything to do with oil. So the runup of $10/bbl for oil in the last few weeks may not go away if the tanks roll back out of Gaza. Historically, this is now the time of the year when oil related products including gas start their slow price increase to around the Aug/Sept time frame. We may not get to where we were last summer (near $5/gal) but the way it is going up, I don't think we are just going to see 2.75/gal this year either.

 

Does this mean its a good time to buy oil again? I think 50/bbl is still a low price, but its hard to guess where it will go up to again.

 

Well, assuming you have enough room in your garage to store some barrels, knock yourself out. Personally, I have never done that well in investing in energy companies. Just too many other factors affect stock prices for the humongous oil cos than teh profits they get from oil. Exxon is more like a bank stock than an energy play. There are some other plays but, like I said, just never been that good a deal for me.

 

i used to pay 4.60 for reg... in fact, 4.79 was the peak for reg in my area of NY.

 

Speaking from experience, not quite true... DOE has mandated 20% of all energy in US to be wind-driven by 2030, and Obama regime is expediting the process to 10% by 1012... very aggressive, but we are seeing some rapid acceleration on our project in the last 60 days....