Stories related to: gas prices

Yes, $4 a gallon seems steep, but the worst is surely yet to come, Robert J. Samuelson writes in the Washington Post . Gas is on pace to rise to $7 a gallon by 2012, with oil rising to $225 a barrel, according to one economist. Oil-rich nations are acting as though we’ve already hit “peak oil,” and fast-growing nations in Asia and elsewhere are keeping demand steady. More »

Gas prices could be going up even more as Midwest floods put acres of corn underwater, causing its price—and that of ethanol—to spike, the Wall Street Journal reports. Relatively low ethanol prices have helped keep gasoline in check, but ethanol refiners paying more for corn could be forced to pass the added costs along to consumers. More »

Higher gas prices are forcing Native American tribal governments to cut back on transportation services, reports Reznet News. The Rosebud Sioux tribe provides its police, education and social services departments with transportation, as well as rides for the elderly and trips to medical appointments. But with coffers running on empty, the South Dakota tribe is changing its driving practices, reallocating funding—and may be forced to shelve programs entirely. More »

With gas prices soaring above $4 a gallon, gas thefts are up across the country, and thieves are devising ever-more-creative means of snatching the stuff, Newsweek reports. Some manage to keep the gas flowing after paying for only a few gallons; others siphon fuel from unsuspecting drivers’ SUVs. Some even use life-threatening maneuvers to gather hundreds of gallons. More »

Truck drivers for Shell have begun a four-day strike in Britain that threatens to hike already sky-high gas prices. Although the government has warned motorists not to panic-buy, gas stations were reporting a 30% spike in sales in the hours before the action; union leaders, meanwhile, have threatened that gasoline would run out "almost immediately," reports the Telegraph . More »

Exxon Mobil is getting out of the retail gasoline business, following other major oil companies who've been selling their low-margin stations to gasoline distributors. The world's biggest publicly traded oil company plans to sell to distributors its remaining 820 company-owned stations and another 1,400 outlets operated by dealers. The transition will take years. More »

Though their safety value in heavy traffic isn't disputed, some Californians are starting to see left-turn arrows as a drag on ever-pricier gas and an avoidable threat to the environment, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports. The California Energy Commission estimates that idling for 2 minutes (often a needless waste of time, some say) uses the same amount of fuel as driving 1 mile. More »

The party in power always suffers during an election year in which the economy is poor, and high gas prices are often the biggest barb. John McCain is suffering the most from high prices at the pump, a Politico analysis of Gallup polls show, with voters putting him behind the GOP at large on the question of who will give “greater priority” to energy. More »

Stiff fuel prices are not pouring cash into the pockets of California gas station owners—instead, they're driving them into bankruptcy. Credit card fees, tanker-load costs, and other rapidly increasing expenses are putting the crunch on retailers, reports the Los Angeles Times . More »

A reining-in of Asia’s demand for oil could help the global crude supply rebound, eventually dropping prices sharply, analysts tell Reuters. But the price relief likely won’t show up until the end of this year or early next, as data needed to help traders set prices is slow to flow in from major Asian countries. More »

Gas prices, which hit an all-time-high average of $4 a gallon over the weekend, are causing more pain in rural America than anywhere else, with motorists in the South, Southwest, and the upper Great Plains the hardest hit. With relatively low wages and high use of pickup trucks and vans, rural families spend up to 13% of their income on fuel while the national average is only 4%, reports the New York Times. More »

Americans are paying more than $4 a gallon for gas for the first time, Reuters reports. The national average reached $4.005 per gallon today, up from $3.67 last month and $3.10 last year. Prices had stabilized last week, until crude oil futures jumped to record levels. In a recent survey, 74% of Americans vowed to change their driving habits in response to $4-a-gallon gas. More »

Forget those predictions of a US economic revival in 2008, Daniel Gross writes in Newsweek . The four horsemen of the economy—credit and housing crises, food and energy prices—are getting meaner, while booming commodities and crunching credit are curbing attempts to fight back. "As a result, the consumer-driven economy may not bounce back as rapidly as it did in the fraught months after 9/11," Gross writes. More »

Optimists can easily chalk up Friday's disastrous day on Wall Street to a skittish market overreacting to lousy news about oil prices and unemployment. The problem, writes Ben Steverman in BusinessWeek , is that many analysts are lining up in the pessimists' camp, which holds that something more "fundamental" is awry. The credit crunch is easing, but rising inflation and an increasingly "fragile" economy could spell long-term trouble. More »

More school buses are being left in park these days, thanks to rising fuel prices and technology that lets students go on “virtual field trips.” “If you can’t go somewhere, this can be the next best thing,” said one administrator, as schools enjoy low teleconferencing costs and help from institutions ranging from NASA to the Bronx Zoo. More »

With oil prices stuck in triple digits, any form of gas is becoming precious booty for thieves, CNN reports. The latest targets: farmers running diesel-fueled irrigation pumps. Fuel tanks, often sitting unguarded in fields, can be a quick score of around 250 gallons in the middle of the night. In Kern County, California, alone the sheriff estimates that $300,000 worth of diesel was stolen in the past 3 months. More »

This year’s hurricane season—which started yesterday—could spawn a dozen or more named storms, potentially disrupting flow of gasoline across the nation and pushing gas prices beyond $5 or even $6 a gallon, reports CNNMoney. Traders already appear to be including a hurricane premium of 10 cents per gallon into prices, something they’ve done since hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. More »

Strapped-for-cash drivers hit by rocketing gas prices are putting less in their tanks and gambling on having enough to last the week—but many don't make it. C alls to AAA for help from out-of-gas drivers in Philadelphia have doubled since prices began to spiral, AP reports. More »

Instead of saving on gas by getting smaller cars, many Americans are buying cars with smaller engines. Four-cylinder autos have been zooming off lots nationwide, leaving six-cylinder rides in the dust: Three quarters of mid-size cars sold in May sported the smaller engine, a swerve away from a trend in ever-bigger motors, the Los Angeles Times reports. More »

An electric car that can travel up to 110 miles when fully charged will hit select US cities next year, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Think City, from Norwegian automaker Think Global AS, is already on the road in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and will set American consumers back less than $25,000. The company plans to produce as well as sell the mini car in the US, with backing from American venture capital investors. More »