How high can gas prices go?
Do you ever get the feeling that you, as a consumer, are being gauged to see how much you’ll pay when it comes to continually skyrocketing gas prices? It seems like every day the media is reporting that the cost of a barrel of crude oil is getting higher and higher! This, of course, causes an immediate inflationary effect on the price of what refiners and fuel distributors charge you and me for the finished fuel product that we must purchase to simply go about our daily routine. For most of us, this has become an all-too-familiar scene, as we’re forced to look at our car’s fuel gauge and recognize that the little “E” stands for “Empty,” not “Extra.” Then the real horror begins as we pass station after station, looking for that ‘bargain’, only to realize that with each passing gas station, gas prices rise higher and higher, and since we are now running on vapors, We can’t risk coming back!
While it is understandable that an increase in the cost of crude oil (the main ingredient needed to make fuel products such as gasoline and diesel) would result in higher future fuel prices, what I do not find understandable is the practice of charging more for gasoline and diesel that has already been produced from crude purchased before the rise occurred.
Gasoline producers and distributors must pick a line of defense and stick with it: If they’re going to argue the need to raise prices for processing the crude they paid more for, so be it. But then they should be willing to undersell their current supplies of fuel that were produced from crude oil purchased before their costs went up. Instead, they argue that they should charge the higher price now because it will cost more to replace their current supplies. If that’s the case, why aren’t they willing to sell their current holdings for less on those rare occasions when the cost of crude oil drops, knowing they’ll be able to replace it for less? Your answer? Because they had to pay more to produce the fuel on hand, they must recoup their costs as they sell it. You can call it what you want; I call it price gouging!
Just when you think fuel prices can’t possibly go any higher, you’re proven wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it. Or is there? More and more consumers are beginning to make their own fuels at home, such as “biodiesel.” Others are finding that certain inexpensive fuel additives can effectively increase the mileage of their vehicles by helping the fuel burn more completely, which increases horsepower and reduces emissions, thus increasing the efficiency of whatever fuel your engine consumes.
While we as consumers can’t directly control runaway gas prices, we can take reasonable steps to make sure our fuel dollars count.