Rumor about gas prices

[Reds Fanatic]

There is a rumor going around work that gas prices are going up above $4 tomorrow. I don't know if it is true but several people have heard this. I just thought I would let everyone know you may want to get gas tonight.

[CTA513]

There is a rumor going around work that gas prices are going up above $4 tomorrow. I don't know if it is true but several people have heard this. I just thought I would let everyone know you may want to get gas tonight.

Everyone that fills up tonight, let me know were you park your car.

[Reds/Flyers Fan]

The Enquirer's front page story today says that $4 is a definite possibility very soon.

The president just spoke from the White House and asked Americans to, if they don't have to fill their cars with gas, refrain from doing so for the time being

[Heath]

Toss in the Labor Day weekend and where it falls is anybody's guess.

I filled up last night at 3.08 - guy who runs the station said it would be 3.59 by Friday - but didn't think it would hit $4 unless something else major would hit.

EDIT - this is Dayton BTW - where gas seems, for some odd reason, cheaper then Cincinnati

[Roy Tucker]

Everybody be cool now...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/bu...rtner=homepage

September 1, 2005
Drivers Fear Gasoline Shortages as Prices Climb
By VIKAS BAJAJ

Drivers continued to line up outside gasoline stations in some parts of the United States today for a second straight day as fears about fuel shortages drove up prices.

In Atlanta and some Southern cities, retail prices under $3 a gallon were rare and gasoline lines were still evident at many service stations. But harsh words from the Georgia governor about price gouging on Wednesday afternoon were apparently successful in getting some stations to lower their prices from $5.89 a gallon, said Garrett Townsend, a division manager with the American Automobile Association Auto Club South.

"There is a lot of concern since this is the Labor Day weekend - it's the last chance to get away," Mr. Townsend said. "People were really concerned about whether there would be fuel available on the way and at their destinations. We are reassuring them that the fuel supply is coming up."

Gasoline futures - the rough equivalent of wholesale prices - for October delivery climbed 15.97 cents, or 7 percent, to $2.415 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange this afternoon. The September contract expired on Wednesday at $2.6145 a gallon. Crude oil prices rose 53 cents, to $69.47 a barrel.

"We have a supply shock," said Roger Diwan, a managing director at PFC Energy. "We lost a lot of supplies at a time when we were very vulnerable. The trouble is that supplies - especially refiners - are going to be down for a while. How high prices go will depend on how quickly refiners can get back on."

There have been sporadic reports of service stations running out of gasoline in Atlanta, North Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Arizona, The Associated Press reported. Some stations near hurricane-affected areas were closed because they did not have electricity needed to pump gasoline.

At one station in Queens, New York, the price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline rose from $2.89 a gallon Wednesday night to $2.97 this morning and $3.09 early this afternoon.

Broadly speaking, the country has sufficient gasoline inventories to meet regular demand, at least for the short term, energy analysts said, but a sustained run on gasoline stations could severely exacerbate Hurricane Katrina's impact.

"Our gasoline system is not meant to handle everyone filing up their tank at the same time," said Dan Pickering, president of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston-based research firm.

The United States consumes about 9.3 million barrels of gasoline a day, and as of Friday there were 194.4 million barrels of gasoline inventories.

Gasoline refining has slowed significantly since Monday when the hurricane hit, shutting down most oil and natural gas production in the gulf and severely hampering the refineries that turn crude oil into gasoline and other fuels.

Also, the storm has severely limited how much gasoline and other finished fuels can be transported from the gulf and Texas to the Eastern half of the United States. Power outages in Mississippi and Louisiana have prevented two major pipelines - the Colonial and the Plantation - from operating at full capacity. Those two pipelines transport most of the gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel used in the Northeast and the South.

Given the industry's inability to get enough fuel to much of the country, Mr. Pickering said excessive gasoline demand would only make the situation worse. "We have enough gas for the system to function, unless you get this panic buying," Mr. Pickering said.

Early this afternoon, the Colonial Pipeline Company said it had successfully restarted its pipeline, which typically delivers 100 million gallons of gasoline, heating oil and aviation fuel. The company said it was operating at 38 percent capacity and hoped to be at 61 percent of capacity by the end of the day. Kinder Morgan, the owner of the Plantation pipeline, said it was operating at about 25 percent of its capacity of 620,000 barrels a day.

"We are waiting for power to be restored, and in the meantime we are doing as much as we can to restore as much capacity as possible," said Rick Rainey, a spokesman for Kinder Morgan.

The federal government has tried to help ease the supply constraints by making crude oil available from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to refiners who are not able to get enough of it from imports and domestic production. The Environmental Protection Agency has also relaxed pollution standards so a greater variety of gasoline can be used.

The Energy Department said this afternoon that it would loan six million barrels of crude oil to Exxon Mobil. That loan is bigger than the six million barrels the government loaned all refiners after Hurricane Ivan last year. Also, Valero Energy said today that it was making a request for 1.5 million barrels of crude oil from the reserve for three refineries.

Both measures are expected to help somewhat, but they will not make up for the disruptions to production and refining in the gulf states. It could days to weeks to get some facilities restored, experts and industry officials said. Flooding, power outages and the lack of crews remain the biggest challenges for the refiners, and the lack of functioning ports and potential damage to underwater pipelines is the main problem for offshore oil rigs and platforms, industry analysts say.

"All of the logistics have been affected here," said Frank A. Verrastro, the head of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It's hard to set up staging areas to inspect the platforms, or even locating employees."

In one rare piece of good news so far, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, an import terminal with a capacity of one million barrels a day, said it had suffered only minimal damage. The Department of Energy said that emergency power generators had been brought to the port and that crude imports to the terminal were expected to resume on Friday.

But operations at Port Fourchon, the facility that services the offshore oil terminal, are still struggling to get back to full capacity. Ships that use the port, which is about 100 miles south of New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico, still cannot sail through the clogged inland waterways that connect it to the Mississippi River and other shipping channels, said Ted M. Falgout, the port's executive director. Also, bridges along the waterway are not operating fully because they lack electricity.

"We are having to remove debris and power lines and then there are the bridge issues," Mr. Falgout said. "We are doing this all ourselves. We have no outside assistance as of yet."

Jad Mouawad contributed reporting for this article.

[TeamCasey]

I filled up today, but I was getting nervously low. I can't believe I didn't fill up at 2.59.

[KittyDuran]

Toss in the Labor Day weekend and where it falls is anybody's guess.

I filled up last night at 3.08 - guy who runs the station said it would be 3.59 by Friday - but didn't think it would hit $4 unless something else major would hit.

EDIT - this is Dayton BTW - where gas seems, for some odd reason, cheaper then Cincinnati

It was 3.59 in Millville (on US 27) at the BP this morning...

[RollyInRaleigh]

Over 40 stations in the Charlotte area out of gas as of this morning. The number is probably more at this time. They are predicting prices in the high $3.00 range and maybe even $4.00 by Labor Day, with no relief until early next week. Residents of the greater Charlotte area are being urged not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

[KittyDuran]

I'm seriously considering not going to Atlanta/Chattanooga/Pidgeon Forge this weekend. [I don't have my accomodations or tickets to the games yet]

[flyer85]

The point of raising gas prices from an economic standpoint is to avoid a possible shortage.

$3.09 seems to be a popular price.

Very happen that I got rid of a guzzler this year and got an Accord EX(gets 29 and 34) and also the 5% rebate of gas credit card is looking good as well.

[ghettochild]

time to bust out the bikes

[KronoRed]

time to bust out the bikes

and horses.

[Heath]

I'm seriously considering not going to Atlanta/Chattanooga/Pidgeon Forge this weekend. [I don't have my accomodations or tickets to the games yet]

We aren't going very far south either - we had plans to South Carolina.

We are just spending the day in Cincinnati at Coney Island.

[Rojo]

We aren't going very far south either - we had plans to South Carolina.

We are just spending the day in Cincinnati at Coney Island.

Multiply your decision over millions of households and, boom, recession.

[Caveat Emperor]

I'm seriously conisdering not driving home from Toledo to Cincinnati this weekend due to the high price of gas...and now lurking in the back of my mind is the notion that I might get to Cincinnati and find the gas to drive back impossible to come by. A totally unthinkable thought process as recently as a week ago.

In law school, I really don't have the time to hold down a job for much more than a couple extra bucks a week, certainly not enough to make a car payment under normal circumstances, but if gas is going to stay at $3.00+ a gallon for any extended length of time, I'm going to seriously have to investigate alternatives to continuing to drive my old Jeep Cherokee, since the gas mileage I get is so poor.