Osg1 20110306 GAS

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Anybody notice anything different at the gas station?

LundbergA

Please don’t tell me this has caught us by surprise again.  More after this from Charlie.

(((SPOT)))

Like most Americans I’m sure you’ve been cheering on the winds of freedom sweeping the middle east.  But freedom always has its price, and now that a barrel of oil has passed $100, business owners especially are getting a better feel for that price:

ZifraniB … our business…every mile counts.”

Gas has gone up more than 30 cents a gallon in the last two weeks, which has the President’s Chief staff is talking about the strategic petroleum reserve – that’s our rainy day deposit – and whether this is the time to make some strategic withdrawals.   During the first Gulf War in 1991 President Bush released 34 million barrels, and prices dropped by a third in one day.
John Kilduff, an oil industry price analyst, says it’s time to do that again:

Kilduff… too fast.”

But Peter Beutel, who also tracks energy prices, says the reserve is for a rainy day, and you have to be careful how you define “rainy day.”  Remember that the winds of freedom might yet sweep into Saudi Arabia:

Beutel… a very rainy day.”

So if $3.50 a gallon is a rainy day, then a very rainy day would be $4?  $4.50?  $5?  Trilby Lundberg publishes the Lundberg survey on gas prices – how hard is that freedom wind blowing?

Lundberg:… of turmoil.”

Do you remember paying over $4 a gallon back in 2008 – wasn’t there a plan to have all our cars running on natural gas, or on electricity from windmills?   I wonder what happened to all that?

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