Gas Price Roulette

Gas prices have taken a nice little ride this month. I don’t normally pay too much attention to prices, but I know when they go up and down. After seeing what happened this month, I’m going to pay much more attention. At the beginning of the month, I went back east to visit family. When I left on the 4th, gas was $4.19/gal at the local Shell station where I tend to get my gas. While I was traveling, there were a number of stories about prices jumping upwards of $.50/gal almost overnight. That’s the type of thing that you don’t really believe until you see it. Well, I saw it when I got back to Burbank. 

I returned on the 8th and gas was $4.69/gal. Sure enough, that was a $.50 increase in just four days. I don’t know what the day to day increase was, but I don’t think that really matters when it jumps that much in such a short period of time. Reports came out that week that prices had probably peaked and would start dropping over the next week. Of course, they wouldn’t drop as quick as they went up, but that 5 and 10 cent drops were a possibility. Here’s what happened over the next three weeks at that same Shel station after the price peaked.

October 9th $4.69

October 15th $4.67

October 16th $4.61

October 17th $4.59

October 19th $4.49

October 22nd $4.43

October 23rd $4.37

October 25th $4.27

October 28th $4.23

October 29th $4.19

In just over 3 weeks gas prices went up and then back down $.50. I don’t care how many refinery fires there are or if they’re making the switch from summer to winter fuel, prices should never swing like that. That is not unless someone is trying to screw someone else.