Average Gasoline Price Jumps To Highest In 5 Months
Stocks are not the only thing enjoying the ECB's $800 billion balance sheet expansion (and just announced additional Bank of England Quantiative Easing) over the past 6 months. Lately a new and unwelcome visitor has also figured out the Euroean Central Bank's sneaky motives. No, not Germany, they still are hopelessly confused and still believe the ECB is not "printing" money. Nor gold. It did long ago, just as Roubini was calling for an imminent crash following the 200 DMA breach - it is headed over $2000 in short order. No, this time it is that last entrant to any reliqufication party, who just happens to be the guaranteed party-pooper: gasoline.
As the weekly Lundberg survey shows, in the week ended February 10, gas rose by 11.57 cents to $3.5101, the highest since September. The latest price is also 12% higher compared to a year earlier. What is troubling is that as the attached chart shows, the trend of gradual gas price declines has now firmly ended, having touched a low of $3.20, and has been replaced by a steady climb over the past 2 months. In other words, the US consumer's retail spending has been far weaker than expected in November and December, and soon to be discovered in January, primarily due to gas purchases, which have already plunged as discussed recently, once again taking up a substantial portion of the discretionary spending basket (on credit at that). And what is worse, is that as the LTRO #2 is about to add another several hundred billion to the ECB's balance sheet, which will ineivtably be followed by more Fed printing, the Gasoline trendline has only one way to go. Expect the recent highs of $4.00/gallon to be taken out shortly, and to lead to yet another GDP roll over once again. Alas, none of this will be a consolation to European readers, who a few days ago just saw gas hit all time highs.
Finally, we don't have to remind our regulars, that as David Rosenberg has been warning, the biggest "benefit" to the economy in H2 2011 was the consistently declining gas price. Now that that is over, and prices are once again increasing, one can kiss that particular one-time stimulus to the economy goodbye. Unless of course that long overdue transitory deflationary collapse takes place promptly.
Here is Reuters with more:
The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose nearly 12 cents in the past three weeks to about $3.51, due in part to higher prices for North Sea crude oil, according to the nationwide Lundberg Survey.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline rose 11.57 cents to $3.5101 as of Feb. 10, the survey of about 2,500 gasoline stations in the continental United States found.
That was a greater change than the 3.5-cent rise in the previous survey, which covered the two weeks that ended Jan. 20.
Survey editor Trilby Lundberg told Reuters that the higher prices came as the price for North Sea Brent crude rose more than $7 per barrel. Brent prices are more volatile and sensitive to changes in the Middle East than is U.S. crude.
Lundberg said U.S. pump prices will likely rise a few more cents in the short-term because retailers have yet to pass along all of the recent wholesale price increases.
Among cities covered by the survey, the lowest average price was in Denver at $3.01 per gallon. The price was highest in Long Island suburbs of New York, at $3.82. The price difference is largely because of taxes, Lundberg said.
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$.30 per gallon on 8,000,000 BBls a day is $36 Billion a year in unofficial tax. Oil companies ands banks win. Citizens, not so much
$9 a gallon in Europe and nobody's complaining.
Cars are encased in solid ice in Europe. They have other things to complain about.
trains, sub , and planes
oh yeah, forgot to mention the good ole consumer friendly USofA
Ref: "Drilling the Big GOP Lie: The US Exports More Gasoline Than It Imports"
ray medeiros 1/12/12 @ Politicususa
http://www.politicususa.com/en/gop-gasoline-export
enjoy
Maybe the North Atlantic Oscillator is shutting down. That should, at least, improve Natgas demand.
Actually I am! I'm already paying 750$ a month to fill up my car just so I can go to work!
Over here I hear a lot of people calling the 2 euro per liter the limit they want to pay for gas and after that they'll start looking for alternatives for their car.
What's a highjacked tanker truck of gasoline worth over here in the states when the pump price gets to $8 a gallon?
10-20 years.
not if a banker hyjacks the truck then its a get out of jail card free
I would pay good money to watch a banker try to drive a Class A rig.
Keep the extinguishers handy...or don't.
Shit...we had guys in 2008 parking vans over the access ports for gas tanks at 7 Elevens, pulling covers, dropping hoses into the tanks and pumping out fuel. Estimates were 500 gallons plus per load...none of that ole'timey siphoning stuff...
Excellent point.
That truck will not get far, nor you. I am someone who has driven them and know.
With that said, Never mind that gas truck, mind how much your station has on hand. There should be a digital gauge on one corner or wall that has a large number on it. If that number is smaller than 4 digits, you wont want the water with the gas you are about to buy.
So what if it did get to 9? Make it 18 or 26 a gallon and then we will see who lives and who dies trying to get gas or sees a shanked gas tank on way to work requiring a 3000 dollar complete replacement of the fuel tank, pump and system.
Deseil? Don't worry, the nation will ensure the trucks roll, just dont trust walmart to have stock in the super centers.
As far as Rail, the juicers in Europe can stuff it, Steam is where it's at.
One other thing We dont pay 1000 dollars a month commuting far away on a shit job with benies. We stay within walking distance and maybe pay 60 dollars if that once a month for gasoline.
Many thanks. You are contributing handsomely to my retirement fund.
My accountant is taking care so thats not the case :)
Work!?! Wow you have a job?....lucky bastard.....
There's these nifty inventions called motorcycles, get you one (at least for the summer months...)
Honda Trail 110cc motorbike... on/off road... 85mpg average. Only for local riding cause top speed is 50 mph.
Last imported into US in 1986 but still being built and imported to many countries including Australia where it is called the Postie. Most local mail delivery in Australia is made with Posties.
In Florida and other warm climate states I'm seeing lots of small motor scooters and motorcycles being used as daily commuters and shopping trips to the grocery stores.
Caution: the 49cc motor scooters don't have enough acceleration to keep up with most traffic on urban streets. 400cc is enough for most interstate highway traffic. Choose according to your needs and ride carefully/defensively. 150cc is plenty for urban commuting/shopping.
Stick with a good name brand like Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, etc, and you will probably have a good and reliable bike... if maintained properly.
do you have proof that nobody is complaining, any studies or evidence?
Haha yes because the economies of Europe are in tip top shape.
The price of gas affects the price of everything. Everything we do requires energy, and energy doesn't just grow on trees. Increasing gas prices will be followed by higher energy prices, higher food prices, higher clothing prices, higher, higher, higher.... and indirectly could even affect things like unemployment if companies can't afford the energy they need to operate.
Sounds like Europeans are not "too bright" then.
Sorta like a PolishHammer.
As far as I remember from reading stuff in 2008, it takes 45 to 60 days from the crude sold in the market to reach the pump.
Do the math.
Americans deserve $9/gallon gas. Fuck all you old suburban professionals driving to Costco in your H2s.
They stopped making H2s after GM went bankrupt and nationalized.
People dumb enough to buy them were getting really a cheap GM full size truck with plastic cladding. It was no way near the toughness of the military derived H1
It's a Suburban, shortened, for soccer dads with tiny dicks.
yeah but it is a shame those little dicks are able to procreate little fucking asshole soccer playing kids
Ah, a eugenicist amongst us. Geez!
I would buy one of those 3500 heavy tow packages first before a H2 or H3 aka plastic box.
I loved the original hummer both military and civilian. I think we left tens of thousands of those things to Iraq as a gift.
Be easier to produce something else now instead of overhauling all those worn out fliptops.
My other ride is your Mom.
Budget cutbacks are a bitch.
You would have loved 1930s Germany, freedom taker that you are. You "are" a ramblin "wreck". That's for sure!
Suburbans rock. I've been averaging 14.1 MPG. Holds 30 gallons. Will go 400 miles on a tank of gas and even with gas at $3.50 a gallon it still only costs me around 100 bucks to fill it up. Leather seats - DVD player - Bose stereo system - 20 inch Aluminum wheels - 4 wheel drive - 350 HP - hauls my boat, woman and children in style. Us 'mericans love us some big azz trucks.
once shit get ugly a good crook could jack your shit up on blocks and be gone with the catalytic converter / scrap aluminum rims / and $100 dollars worth of fuel after punching a whole in the tank, and all in about 10 minutes.. score maybe $400 in 10 minutes.. and it wont be crack heads it will be your starving neighbor who knows your schedule lol
oh and don't bother calling the cops.. unless there was a murder, their budget forced them to cut to the bare bone and what's left is standing perimeter watch around the municipal building.
Hmmm, observing an interesting asset class ....
Mules long ?
:-P
There will not be a need to call the cops,just like in the present.They always show up with crime tape and chalk AFTER the fact.Over rated.
In some cases around the USA that act of crime would not warrant a police response.
I think there is about 50 small crimes for which police wont come out.
We could care less about the converters. We are still a straight pipe state without required inspections so far.
Thank. God.
When the shit hits the fan I'll be sure to wave at all you communist hippie prius driving cocksuckers sitting in gridlock fleeing the cities whilst I drive past you in 4lo on the shoulder getting all of 11mpg in my YJ.
Be far better to be already living two hours from the city and not hear too much out here in the countryside.
I think someone from Bosnia who had a farm during the war in the 80's wrote about how they finally came for him, his lands and families toting Military Battle rifles.
So with everyone in recession/depression where is the demand coming from?
Something doesn't add up.
Molotov cocktails aren't cheap these days you know.
1,7 euro for the content and 20 cents for the glass bottle of raki that could have been recylced.
They make it up on volume...
There are several things in play:
1) The measures of retail oil/gasoline delivery are not comprehensive measures of consumption.
2) As oil scarcity tightens its vice, you get the smash of population increase with no GDP growth. This can ramp oil consumption even in recession.
3) Japan's tsunami and shut down of nukes yielded a) an influx of 1 mile/gallon bulldozers and 2) a huge demand for honda gasoline powered generators
4) China is buying 26 million cars a year. There are no clunkers going off the back end of age. All 26 million is new oil consumption, relentlessly increasing.
Honda makes shit generators.
Its Generac or CAT for here in the USA. Kohler makes decent engines too.
8 gallons, half load (8kw or so) good for 12 hours more or less.
Perhaps you might look at your assumptions. The under-employed still need to get to their shittier jobs.
Sure glad I only fill up once every two months.
The vicious circle. Prices of diesel and gasoline drive the price of everything up. Mr. B lives in area D and drives to area C to get to his job, but the rising price of gas is driving Mr. B over his budget. He tries mass transportation and finds it is taking him about three hours a day to get back and forth to work, that is if everything goes right. So he take a lower paying job or jobs closer to where he lives. His total revenue has decreased but his disposable income is closer to where it was. Of course his drop in income also means he is paying less in the way of taxes. So of course the Administration and the local elites look around for something to tax him on.......Sales of guns and ammo continue to be good.
make it $8 a gallon and get rid of some traffic
Get rid of the dumb bitches in SUVs, and I'll gladly ride to work on a 500cc motorcycle.
Mine's a 750cc!
Mines 1800cc!!!!!!!!!!!!
129 h.p.
V-Twin. ;-)
A Datsun 1200 was one of the best vehicles for it's time. We put something like 120K miles on ours before the structural integrity was questioned. It would invent a new noise each month until it started to make a new one each week.
Sold it for 200 dollars, the phone rang for 5 months on that one ad.
One of my older cars would require two pints of transmission fluid after bleeding it out on 130+ mph run at top end. God I miss that money pit.
There is no way in hell Obama will let this ramp this year. He has his people AGAIN orchestrating a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release to arrive in summer and cut the price.
For gas price to hit his campaign, it has to slide up slowly (note this has happened because of Brent's spread blowout as it became clear there are no replacements for Iranian oil and it got bid up). If it happens slowly, he may not do the SPR pump in time to affect his re-election.
People getting gouged by Big Oil makes for a nifty populist platform, don't you think?
Because the SPR release last year did so much to abate the high prices. Surely it will work this time...
obomba is no match for peak oil.
And yet distillate production is at its lowest level in over decade despite one of the highest prices in Jan and Feb ever. Inflationary Depression.
See, in the old Normal, when the price of something went up, more of it was produced to capture that revenue.
But now economics is turned on its head as it becomes clear that increasing the price of oil yields no significant increased production.
Geology decides this war. Not economics and not finance.
I want to see how bad this gets when Sunoco shuts down their refinery outside of Philly this year. PECO is saying they expect electricity demand to be down 5% for industrial consumption. Nasty when you produce less and prices go even higher. If Sunoco won't keep a refinery open at $3-4 gas, I don't know if they'll ever bring back that production.
I think the point is, there's nothing there to refine. It pretty much confirms peak oil when they're killing capacity in the light of rising prices.
It aint going to be needed. So maximise profits by getting rid of the unnecessary costs.
There's a glut currently. Companies have resorted to parking tankers off shore to store more oil since on-shore storage is maxed.. We are actually exporting the stuff, yet the price increases. Demand is down 21+ percent and yet the price goes up. Pretty cool for some one.
You're badly behind the times. Tanker storage was a very brief lived event of 4 years ago. It is no longer happening. When it did happen, it happened on presumption of increasing prices.
Demand is not down 21%. That's the basic problem. Measures of demand are obsolete. Look at all consumption (NOT DEMAND, CONSUMPTION; in the new normal they are not the same thing) for the whole planet. China and India AND SAUDI ARABIA are ramping up their oil consumption steeply.
WTI is no longer meaningful. Brent is the world's oil standard.
Local refineries shutting down due to imports from overseas.
Lots of jobs lost in the process.Steel workers taking the hit on that close down.
I was thinking the same. That demand drop should be psuhing the price down 15 to 20% at least. Maybe time to go short by wednesday.
Since conventional oil production peaked in 2006 every extra barrel of oil consumption in China, India, and the rest of the world has to be met with a barrel of reduced consumption somewhere else.
Even as our demand declines prices must still rise if the drop in consumption doesn't match the increased consumption elsewhere.
If this is what the plateau of global oil production looks like, then what will the actual decline feel and look like? I won't have to wonder for long.
The problem is that once the decline starts, along with increasing demand, it's going to be rather a quick process.
When production crosses demand, on the way down, it goes from a steady decline to a literal cliff jump.
Once again thank the Bernanke's of the world who are sooo worried about deflationary forces getting out of control. They have to do everything within their powers because after all they are sooo much smarter than the rest of us. Not only because their studies of the depression are sooo important to guiding us through these treacherous times, but perhaps the bankers of the world are sooo doing god's work and the need the liquidity for such work.
I sense some sarcasm in your post
"Inflation is low and transitory --- always.'
- Ben "I Heart Keynes" Bernankstrophe
When do they really start drilling in Iraq, which is floating on a sea of oil. See 1928 Red Line agreement.
http://www.alternet.org/world/37371/
more gas on the fire - nice
the vortex that never stops sucking, eh ross
Once they decide to raise fuel costs, more dependents will be forced to join government services. As math always proves, the system will no longer be able to hand out [working taxpayers income] free money to support those in government assistance. You cannot buy a new channel stuffed car, if your unemployed and drawing a government unemployment check.
btw, never said regarding your avatar. Big Black = the shiznit. Listening to Bad Penny right now in honor of you.
Sonic Youth - talent == Big Black
Gas is still cheap for Americans. $4 a gallon seems to be a breaking point at which they notice.
Still, gas is probably going to $5 to $10 so get ready.
Consider the under-employed cat earning min wage and only getting 20 hours per week (never more than 4 on the same day, mind you).
Of your $116/week after-tax/FICA income, you'll spend $16 (14%) just to get to work (with the average 15mi commute and 24mpg gas mileage and $5/gallon gas).
That's before you pony up for repairs and car insurance...and it's more like 20-30% if you're an idiot in a big truck or drive farther.
Gas is "cheap" for some Americans.
Gasoline prices are headed higher no matter what crude does. When was the last major refinery built here in the USA???
And yep, we're headed for an inflationary depression . The food/fuel riots coming here will make the riots in Greece look pretty tame.
Hey, Hoss. What's that? A 20 ga auto? Best O' luck to ya!
Why would anyone build a refinery when there's so much excess refinery capacity? Refineries are being idled and shut down due to lack of demand for gasoline.
Thats what the TPTB want,FUCKING DISORDER.And they will get their wishes.And then clamp down.We got new members to be instilled into Law Enforcement fresh from the war grounds.Follow order zombies who NEED A JOB.
Obama wants gas high enough that someone will decide to try one of those electric cars. It's apparently not there yet, but he thinks at some gas price somebody might buy one.
The problem is that the high gas prices restrict economic growth (and my paycheck) making the already fairly pricey electric vehicles that much more unaffordable.
Thats the paradox. You need high gas prices to justify buying an electric car, but the high prices reduce the amount left over after bills are paid every month. High gas prices are an incentive to buy, but the high gas prices simultaneously reduce sales.
For now hybrids are a clear winner. They get superior mileage, which is identical to paying less at the pump.
The electric car is sort of a catch 22, when you consider the amount of copper needed for motor windings, and of course, the electric power needed to charge said cars.
And which country has the lions share of rare earth material again?
Great. Just what we need, a countryside cluttered with Leafs and Volts, deader than doornails because pretty soon nobody can afford the electricity to charge them. Those cars actually run on nuclear, coal, or natural gas, depending on the area of the country, and all them are going up in price. Not to mention that there is just not enough lithium on the entire planet to provide batteries for more than about a half-million of them...
Arkansas only has about 60 Volts in total. If I understood recent numbers in our area.
I think one dealer reported selling just 3 volts over 5 months and knows of about 15 or so more within a hours drive from him.
If you know what is good for you dont fucking buy a Volt.
Some of the cars they are selling now would fit in the truck bed easily. The roads that they are running on has been down since the early 60's with shit maintenance and some patch here and there.
All that money into a tiny shit for brains car that will get beat up trying to maintain 60 mph.... what a waste.
It seems no one learned anything from our Yugo and Geo experience.
It doesn't matter even if electric cars get better mileage (which they don't), since they still cost three times more than "conventional" gas-burners... I can run three gas-burners into the ground for the price of a single electric car. Twenty years of cheap transportation for the price of a single electric car - how economical is that? Then you get 450 mi on a single tank of gas, while you have to recharge your electric car every day, eating up electrical costs, etc. My pool pump cost about $200 a month to run, and electric cars require much more power than a pool pump. Besides, where do you think all that electricity comes from? Somebody's burning gas and coal to make the electricity that recharges the car. If electric cars really were affordable and economical, I'd be the first one out there driving an electric car, and bragging about it. Maybe electric cars will arrive some day, but they still have a long ways to go before they can compete with gas-burners, even if gas hits $10 a gallon.
ethanol/ sarc for drinking /non-sarc
There is some truth to that, ethanol attracts water.
We occasionally have cars fail after a fillup injects too much water from a gas station tank that was allowed more than two inches of liquid water in the bottom of the Premium side.
When you consider a 10,000 gallon tank underground double hull and it sucks on 1 or 2 inches of water at the last few hundred gallons before empty...
You DONT want to fill up until AFTER the 18 wheeler delivers the gasoline.
yup, my mantra on the financil crisis is that bernenker by folooding the system with money drove up the price of oil to 147 per barrell (because it wasn't going into mortgage backed securites) or bank stocks.) caused a repete of the 70's oil crisis (by price not supply) . this made the recession much worse ( added to the level of consumer debt (mortgage, second mortgage, credit card) means with the new higher costs of fuel this debt couldn't be paid and boom. I keep sqaying these Qe measure cause the slowdown, because the economy isn't being allowed to heal naturally and prices be where they should. How many times do we have tosee the same pattern to alter it. I believe the bernake knows this is happening, but since he only gives a shit about the bankers just keeps doing it anyway. this new inflation targeting stuff is also the worst.
england is doing so bad because of the QE. those folks have so much inflation it's sick and the central bank just ignores the data.
Notice we get these recoveries each time the market drops and prices drop, then we do the easing, market go up, and the economy drops. seen it three times now, it's my investment strategy for a while now. I just try to figure out when the increase in oil prices is going to screw the economy. I think it's clear it's happening in europe from the threads here.