Going Up! Another Report From Gas War Alley

[billroper]

Gas prices are going through the roof again in Chicago. We are up at least fifty cents a gallon in the last two weeks. I bought gas at Sam's Club last week for $3.59 (which was about twenty cents lower than the stations on the strip at the time; I caught them on Sunday before they marked it up).

Gas at the Shell station today was $4.29. The Speedway across the street was at $4.25, as were a couple of other stations up the street.

If you're coming in from out of town for Musecon, make sure to fill up before you get into the Chicago area.

Comments

[ericcoleman]

Thank you, I usually fill up about 50 miles out anyway, but it will be definite this time.

[kizoku42.livejournal.com]

Jumped sharply here too, up to 3.97. Wonder what their excuse is?

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

They need an excuse? How about it was Tuesday? Or it was cloudy? I find it hard to believe there's actual reasons behind these moves when I see a 20 cent jump in less than 3 hours.

[spiritdancer]

Apparently, there was a fire at a refinery in Oklahoma in the last day or two, and it is projected to affect supplies. Thankfully, I spotted the jump at one station before the nearby one jumped their prices, and so filled the tank at the cheaper price.

[billroper]

I checked yesterday. Apparently, crude oil prices are up, which is part of what's driving the problem. Ethanol is also up, because of the drought and the impending corn shortage.

There have been suggestions of relaxing the ethanol requirement so that an ethanol shortage doesn't drive gas through the roof and so that the price of feed corn doesn't cause meat prices to go more crazy than they've already gone. No action on that at this point.

[kizoku42.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. Did a bit of Googling to see how much ethanol actually costs. It -has- gone up 40 cents a gallon, to $2.63. While this would certainly raise gas prices, I don't see why removing it would help. Not if you have to replace it with more expensive straight gasoline; that should raise them -more-. Meat prices are another story and so is possible famine in other countries. Both are apt to get worse when prices of corn and soy go up.

[kizoku42.livejournal.com]

I did say excuse, not reason.

[spiritdancer]

I'm not in for Musecon, but for another event (in Schaumburg). I generally top off the tank before leaving Iowa, but I'm still glad to have a heads-up :)

[dorismood.livejournal.com]

Was just there last weekend for Pierogifest in Whiting, and it was $3.69 I think somewhere near airport. A side note, lost a tire on I90 Put the donut on on the nice wide shoulder (thank god) and Arandas Tire and Rim nearby only charged us $35 for new one. So used to getting gouged that i was totally stunned. Will be back in Chicago last week in September. Hope price down by then.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Sometime last week, all the stations in C-U went from $3.29 to $3.69. I was still seeing red over that yesterday when I saw that they'd jumped to $3.95. Where's my pitchfork, dammit?