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The prices at the gas pumps are about as low as they have been all year. It is so great to be able to drive to the gas station without sweating about how much it will cost this time to fill up our vehicles.
But most of us are all still worried about the price of gas. The past week gas prices have inched up a few cents. The past year has shown us how quickly gas prices can go up, and down.
We all like the down side much better, cheaper gas prices are great after all that time of dreading the trip to the gas station. We all have questions about the quick drop in the price of a gallon of gas, and the drop in the cost of a barrel of crude oil. What happenened to make everything change so quickly?
A lot of people are wondering if gas prices will go up again, and that means we will have to dish out all our hard earned money at the pumps again. With the average price of a gallon moving upward this week, to the tune of five cents and the memories of paying 3.00 per gallon not too long ago,we have reason to be concerned.
Experts don't expect a rise, especially not a big one over the winter months, but that will remain to be seen now that OPEC has cut production of crude oil down by 1.2 million barrels a day. They are talking about cutting down even more. Will they decide to increase the cut down?
In a few months from now we will be heading into the peak spring and summer driving months. These are the months that bring with them the potential for hurricanes, which is part of what drove the gas prices to climb upward. We will have to pay attention to the forcasts this hurricane season.
With 200,000,000 gas powered vehicles on our roads the amount of gas we go through everyday is a staggering 400 million gallons (400,000,000). Now lets multiply that by 2.00 (just averaging out gas prices off the top of my head) equals $800,000,000.00. Now that's a day, each and every day times a year equals $292,000,000,000.00.
Now lets just get a few other numbers out there. If every driver cut his gas use by one (1) gallon daily, that would save a total of $400,000,000.00 per day, and that's $146,000,000,000.00 a year. It would save 200,000,000 gallons of gas a day.
In one day, imagine those figures if we each did the math for a week, or a month. That might be a big enough drop in fuel use to keep the supply of gas we have at a surplus, and it could keep the prices of the fuel on the low side for some time to come.
If gas prices remain low for a while we could all forget about the high prices we payed this year, and be lulled into a false sense of security by months of paying a more reasonable prices for our gas. We tend to forget the pain of dishing out way to much for fuel when prices decline.