Based on prior experience, consumers will travel by car this summer, as long as the economy remains strong. There may be some moves away from big vehicles, which we've already seen to some degree, but gasoline costs won't curtail travel.
Basically what is happening is the industry is trying to stop a run on wholesale gasoline by gas stations, ... The gas station owners don't want to under price the market and possibly run out of gasoline.
It pretty much caused the whole industry to stampede into the use of ethanol.
We wouldn't be surprised to see nationwide gasoline prices averaging $3 a gallon again before the end of May. And they could go even higher than that.
We think American drivers should brace themselves for a fairly large increase, as soon as this weekend. It could be an increase of around five cents a gallon nationwide.
It would hurt some local business people. It's not going to bring down the price of gasoline.
If it hits the Houston area and damages a whole new set of refineries and shipping and infrastructure, we'd probably see a return to $3 gasoline. We were looking forward to gasoline going back to $2.50, $2.60 a gallon, but this new storm will put a stop to that.
We're going to continue to see not only higher prices but gasoline availability issues on the Gulf Coast and other issues in the southeast United States, mainly due to fuel distribution problems over the short term.
With each passing day, based on what we're hearing about the industry being restarted, this current environment will ease,
They may have to pay 10, 20 30 cents a gallon more than someone across the street. You can end up seeing a wide variety in price.
