Environment

After a long, steady decline, gas prices start to rise again

by Adam Purple | January 13, 2009 at 05:12 pm

343 views | 44 Recommendations | 4 comments

After almost 6 months of steadily declining, gasoline prices in the US have again started to climb, with the nationwide average price of a gallon jumping by 11% over the past two weeks.

As reported by the US Energy Information Agency, the nationwide average price for gasoline hit an all-time high in mid-July of last year, at a price of $4.11 per gallon. With the exception of a brief increase in price that occurred in September, gasoline prices have fallen steadily since July's peak, eventually hitting a near five-year low at $1.61 per gallon in late December, a drop of over 60%.

In the two weeks since that bottoming-out, prices have jumped by more than 17 cents per gallon, to $1.78. But even with the sudden increase in prices, gasoline is still about $1.25 cheaper than it was at this time last year.

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Valgal1

at 18:42 on January 13th, 2009

While driving home I seen the gas sign and thought that it was funny. For one thing the price is listed under the Oh thank Heaven sign. And secondly I took the picture on 1-5-09 when gas was $1.59.

1valgal has contributed a photo to this story.

Amy Judd

at 18:52 on January 13th, 2009

That sucks - I was hoping it would stay down for a while...

nyctuber

at 21:52 on January 13th, 2009

OPEC has been making major production cuts to keep the price up. The new 'fair price' according to OPEC is @ $70-$100, even though those prices had basically never been seen until recently. Hopefully the long term benefit of all of this will be 1) recognition that OPEC looks out only for itself and 2) that renewable energy is the only long term solution and can't be delayed anymore.

kingpaddy

at 00:52 on January 14th, 2009

Wake up! There is no reason for prices to go up. A comment on one day about Israel and Hamas took it up $7.00. It came down to $37 the next day. I worked for Texaco for a few years and the price per barrel times three pennies is the refining and delivery retail cost. When the big banks went down and had to let go of their oil options the price plummeted. Today in daily finances (US) there is a reported over supply as the industrial world sinks into depression.

The price of oil was fixed and I beleive that this lst rise was to get the stimulas money Americans were given. My blogs show that it started rising a few months before the money went out and peaked when it was out and slowly declined as gas and heating bills came in. I worked for those S*Bs and they are the mafia.