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Yes, and then they will get complacent about drilling again and building refineries. Ten years ago they said, "Why drill now, you won't see that oil for 10 years" and 10 years later, here we are saying the same thing.
I think it is possible that if demand declines and production (including refineries) stabilizes, we could bump back down into the low $3 range. But, I suspect it would be short lived. $4 a gallon may be the "new normal".
I have a question regarding this- gas prices SHOULD be going down given the lower oil prices, but they are not. Why is that? Oil has dropped about 15% from the high a month or two ago, but yet gas prices here in my area only went down about 15 CENTS, and have now gone back up another 5-8 cents in the last few days. Why is that? Oil is still down around $98 per barrel- why are we not seeing gas prices down at a relative level, or at least why is it going UP recently? We should be outraged by this- there has to be some price fixing/gouging going on now, it's ridiculous.
With how much oil went down, and what the pricing was before, gas should be down around $3.50 per gallon. Instead- at least at many stations around here- we are still paying $3.95-$3.99! (and that is down from highs a couple weeks ago of $4.05-$4.10)
I digress from my ranting and raving, but I do have a serious question- why would gas be going up recently? 6 cents overnight at many stations around here. Is there any true, valid reason for this when oil still sits down below $100 per barrel?
Yes, and then they will get complacent about drilling again and building refineries. Ten years ago they said, "Why drill now, you won't see that oil for 10 years" and 10 years later, here we are saying the same thing.
Where is it that you think there should be drilling? Just asking because if you know of some secret stash of Oil, we can probably have folks heading that direction next week . . . .
And as far as refineries -- we build/re-build them all the time on outages. Part of the cycle. But in the last few years, 3 have been shut down and one new cancelled due to lack of demand and market saturation. So what would you do with more refineries?
Americans want our cheap gas and we want it now. As usual, we're not thinking about the consequences down the line. In the United States, consumer use of petroleum exceeds 40% of our total daily consumption - in other countries, agriculture, industry, and the military are the biggest users.
So what's happening is we are getting used to a lifestyle where we can jump into our own personal automobile and go wherever we please for whatever reason. While we will never "run out" of oil, we WILL run out of CHEAP oil in this century, and the impact on our American consumer lifestyle will be significant.
We have enough disasters going on in this world right now, all we need is one more disaster, for the gas prices in the U.S. to drop back down to $3 a gallon.
The higher the gas prices, the better!
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