I'm thinking now that big oil pays The Weather Channel to hype up storms headed toward the gulf! I was watching TWC and it seemed like they mentioned every other word about oil rigs, price of crude, oil traders watching the storm, etc. Or, perhaps they get a power high from it.

Shhh HB.... I don't care about the oil traders.
I just want great boating weather next weekend

I wonder if TWC will trumpet that it's just a tropical storm now?

I am am curious to see if the artifically high prices at the local pumps go up today since oil shot up yesterday. They shouldn't as the price of gas is still too high in relation to the oil price, but we all know how this works, by now.

More proof...
Coworker found if your go to Weather channel web site and pull radar, zoom out/scroll down to Cuba area there is no storm. BUT, they do show it on their projected path.

To the local station's credit, prices stayed steady today.

Prices jumped from 3.37 yesterday to 3.59 today.

Fargin' iceholes!

Yep, one station raised their price $.20 this morning. I haven't seen if the rest have followed yet, though.

It hasn't moved much from around $3.99 around here. You guys gotta remember that $0.40 is only 10%, the same as $0.10 used to be back about 8 or 9 years ago.

Oh I realize that Bank. But as posted in another thread, oil is down 20% from it's high, yet gasoline is only down 10%.

And while the local stations waited until yesterday to raise their prices $.20 to $.25, the price of crude oil actually went back down on the market. Think they will lower those prices today? Not a chance, the Labor Day weekend is coming!

It's a holiday weekend, gouge time. The hurricane is an excuse.

Here is a graphic showing the location of the gulf coast oil rigs:

Oil Rigs

I'd say that there is some bonafide risk to oil production.

The thing is Al, that is only like 10% of US production which is probably only 1% of world production so that can't possibly justify $10.00 or more a barrel, which it will be next week I bet. Also, much of that graphic you posted is also natural gas production, why has it's price not climbed proportionally?

Sorry, only a few stations around here have jumped 20 cents overnight, the rest have maintained which tells me some are taking advantage of the situation.

EDIT: It's actually 25% of US production and 15% of natural gas. Moot point as prices went down today as Gustov fizzled.

Crude prices actually fell today. Gas is still too far behind, but you are probably tired of me saying that, aren't you?

Here's my weekend gas price story...
So, my little hometown (about 6,000 population) just got a new Ingles grocery store. For us, this is a big deal as the store has pharmacy, gas pumps, etc...the whole nine yards. Store was scheduled to open Sat but they opened gas pumps on Fri. Rode by Fri at lunch and both Ingles and nearby convenience store were $3.55. I went back by about 3:45pm and convenience store dropped to $3.53. At 5pm both had dropped to $3.52. A good old fashioned price war going on. About 12:30pm today we're headed out of town for some furniture shopping, Ingles is $3.50 and convenience store is still $3.52. Come back by on way home at 4pm and convenience store had jumped to $3.65!!! Ingles was still sitting at $3.50.