Hurricane Stuff - Part 2

LET THE GOUGING BEGIN

I thought I was being facetious when I said that I was going to get gas last night before gas reached $2.75. Well, the joke is on everyone else now that prices around here have already began to rise. At the same station I paid $2.40 a gallon last night, is now up to $2.60. Other stations (where I would never buy gas anyway) have already put prices up to $2.70. Still there are other stations that haven't begun gouging yet, especially since I don't think they started running low on gas at this point. So there's definitely some price shenanigans going on, especially with the BP and Sunoco stations. Exxon and Raceway haven't jacked up their prices yet (which is funny to see a station offering $2.38 gas next to $2.60 gas. That will change soon enough. There are already plenty of signs that there's going to be a supply crunch in the next couple of days. And it's not even going to be speculative. It's going to be because the oil refineries are shut down in the south, which is going to make prices in the Southeast very uncomfortable. Everywhere else, prices will rise because retailers can take advantage. There's no "real" reason why prices will go up in the Northeast except that everyone will expect them to rise. Same thing west of the rockies. Oil prices should rise, but the world price of oil shouldn't rise too much except for speculation. And that's exactly what's going to happen here.

However, short of another hurricane in that neck of the woods (or one striking Texas), production will probably be back to normal by the time winter rolls around. That's my guess. However, that won't prevent prices from going up any further. I don't see any major shortages happening either. Though it would be funny if rationing started to happen (suck on that SUV drivers). Anyway, my tank is full and shouldn't have to be refilled anytime in the next week or so, so we'll see if I can weather the storm (no pun intended) without a problem.