Buffalo Boy's Blog
Giving You More Than Just My Two Cents
Someone is Getting Hosed
The news today is that oil prices have dropped to $35 a barrel due to a big jump in inventories and some other bull crap.
Meanwhile, myself and many of you are driving around Western New York watching gas prices spike upwards. Mobil on the corner of Forest and Elmwood is $2.19 a gallon, do not go there. boycott them. They are a good 18 cents higher than the others. There is another Mobil on Pine Ave. in Niagara Falls that is also $2.19. Boycott that station too. Besides those two, other stations are running in the low $2 range which seems awfully high considering oil prices are at "multi-year" lows. People need to question the gas station owners and the oil companies just a little more here and get answers. I know there are other variables but when oil goes up, gas goes for the ride, when oil goes down, conventional wisdom would say that gas should follow it down. The fact that oil inventories are going up means we are using less, this all despite the fact that OPEC has cut output by millions of barrels. We use less, there is more supply, price should go down.......I'm starting by boycotting Mobil because they seem to be the worst ones out there.
Mike, a lot of Mobil's are independently owned and they have money taken off the top to "wear the brand" so to speak. They charge more and get away with it because they tend to have prime locations and they have to cover the extra expense.
Gasoline inventories are actually opposite oil right now, and are a little low. That's why the spot price of gasoline has actually been increasing over the past few weeks. Holiday travel picked up more than expected because gas prices wound up being lower.
It's a fine line right now. OPEC cuts oil production, which in turn cuts gasoline inventories, and consumption is up. It should balance itself out soon, but it won't be on the low side because demand for oil is going to increase, so if anything the price of oil will re-align itself with the price of gasoline.