AP: Rita Likely to Spark Rise in Gas Prices

[SillyGoose]

Sep 25, 6:13 AM (ET)

By STEVE QUINN

HOUSTON (AP) - The millions of Texans who fled Houston and other Gulf Coast cities to avoid Hurricane Rita are likely to pay higher prices for gasoline - if they can find it - on their return trips home.

And even if Rita's damage to Texas and Louisiana oil refineries and pipeline operations proves to be less than was feared, motorists around the country still face the prospect of at least another short-term spike in pump prices, analysts said.

"We're going higher in terms of retail prices," at least in the short term, because of tight supplies, said analyst Tom Kloza of Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. "Rita was more than a nuisance, but short of a catastrophe."

Pump prices, which are already 47 percent higher than a year ago at $2.75 per gallon, could once again climb above $3 a gallon nationwide, analysts said. Supply snags are most problematic for the Gulf Coast, but markets in the East and Midwest are also vulnerable.

more...
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050925/D8CR7GTO0.html

[Straight Shooter]

1. Prices rising in the short term. A spike. Yeah, right.

Prices will rise dramatically, fall a bit and yet remain at a level which is painful for us and oh-so-profitable for the oil companies and their best friends bush and cheney.

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, uh, er, we won't get fooled again!

[GRLMGC]

2. Yeah

That's what seemed to happen after Katrina. I live in CA and I was at home in LA during the summer. The gas prices were a little over 3 bucks and they went down maybe fifteen cents. Big whoop! They went up so fast and yet took FOREVER to come down.

[Neshanic]

3. It is barely below 3 bucks in Arizona still. 2.96 I saw was lowest.

So there's no difference here.

[Skink]

4. The filling stations seem to be in lock step now.

I look for the best prices and it doesn't seem to matter where you go.

[Seabiscuit]

5. All the articles I've read tonight say the opposite - prices are falling.

Because the damage to the refineries wasn't as great as expected.

[confludemocrat]

6. This is a story AP has been fed to signal distributors to raise prices

Notice how they dropped when things got hot for president dumbass post-katrina, when their excuses and blame game failed miserably and they needed to take some heat off the miserable batting a thousand failure. Now they are trying to complete that interrupted rip, picking up where they left off.