Oil and gasoline prices are rising
Crude oil nears $100 a barrel for the first time since May. Prices at the pump are up 4.5% since bottoming in December. Want someone to blame? Try hopes for global growth and geopolitical tensions.
The average price of regular unleaded gasoline was at $3.364 a gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That's up 2.2% this month and 4.5% since hitting a 2012 low of $3.219 on Dec. 20.
The move parallels rising oil prices. Crude oil in the United States is approaching $100 a barrel for the first time since May 2012 and could hit that level any day, says Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Va.
Light sweet crude (-CL) in New York settled Tuesday at $97.57 a barrel, up $1.13 from Monday and 6.3% this month alone.
Brent crude, the benchmark North Sea crude, settled up 88 cents to $114.36 a barrel in London. Brent, which is up 2.8% in January, influences U.S. gasoline prices as much as light sweet crude.
The gains for oil and gasoline appear to reflect two f
orces: - Optimism that economies globally will do better than expected, particularly the United States.
- Continued worries about protests and terror attacks in North Africa and the Middle East. The civil war in Syria and worries about Iran are playing a role in the oil-price run-up.
If you want some good news about the rising prices, it's just that the gains so far aren't as big as a year ago.
By Jan. 29, 2012, gasoline was up 4.4% to $3.419 while crude oil in New York was flat, but Brent crude was up about 3.8% at $111.46 a barrel.
Another reason for higher prices, suggested Arjun Sreekumar on the Motley Fool, is that production costs for crude oil are rising.
Between 2001 and 2010, the average annual price of Brent increased 228%, while marginal production costs among the world's 50 biggest public oil companies rose 229%, according to calculations by Bernstein Research.
The price of Brent crude is up 462% since the end of 2001. Light sweet crude in New York, however, is down 1.4%. Light sweet crude did hit reach $145.29 a barrel on July 3, 2008 and was a contributing factor to 2008-2009 recession.
But Tuz is a little surprised by the oil-price run-up. U.S. prices should be lower if only because of the big increases in supply coming from shale deposits in North Dakota, Texas and elsewhere.
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Wow,,,,,, did anyone ever notice that the word **** has been blocked by MSN and NBC. Suppose Obama put that on his list of directives to the media of what they can and cannot show.
Oil is speculative.... used to be a good controlled speculative market when traders were regulated. Democrats made oil speculation open to everyone who wanted in, and prices started making crazy up and down swings since.
Keystone pipeline truth.... the planning for this has been in for decades, not just since Obama. All the land was bought, leased, or optioned long ago by knowlegeable investors. Seemed easy, lots of jobs, oil from Canada instead of the middle east.... Time to vote. But wait, all the lacky Obama Dem congresspeople and their supporters wanted in on the deal.... money threw 10 handed deals... all that stuff. Not the people who poured years into planning and investment in the opportunity. And that is why Obama has shut down Keystone. Its not the environment, or any other reason. They just have to put a few twists and turns in its path to run over the right properties, and shovel the correct Federal funding to the right politicians..... thats the truth of why Obama wont ok Keystone.
too funny. Want someone to blame.... just don't blame Obama and the gang who couldn't shoot... wait no....
Reactive foriegn policy. No economic anything going on for four years. Worried about gay people, guns, busting the constitution, spending more, and sticking us with a growing socialist agenda. Nope, blame a bunch of ****s running around the desert with their guns. Just don't blame Obama.
For four years this President has done nothing but campaign, cover up, deflect, and play with social issues pushing his own defunct vision of what the world should be. No economic focus, no foriegn policy strategy, no assisting with compromise in Congress, no budget.... no anything of real importance. And people still wonder and keep looking for something else to blame?
When will the US declare independence from foreign oil and drill in the midwest?????
Enough of environmentalists and enough of foreign aid!
It's time for our troops to leave the Arab countries and let them solve their own problems.
Let the UN worry about the world, let the US heal it's own problems.
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