For those of you following the movement in gasoline prices - it looks like prices might be bottoming out here in the short term. MSNBC reported a slight increase in prices for the coming week after an almost continuous drop since the July 16th reported peak of $3.049 (U.S. Average). In addition, wholesale prices took a significant movement upward today on inventory concerns, moving almost 8¢ for September delivery. Keep your eyes open on those gasoline prices!

A lot of people often ask us “Why does GasLimit reimburse based on published, or index gasoline prices? Can’t you use my actual purchases at the gas stations to determine if prices exceeded the cap???”

To answer this question, we thought we would kill 2 birds with 1 stone and answer another question often asked - that being, “How can I find gas station prices in my area?”

The first question is answered by showing what type of difference in gasoline prices one can witness with gas stations in the same zipcode - I would like to point the reader to the following tool on msn -
here you can see the discrepency in gas station prices that exist within an area code. It is because there is such a wide range of gasoline prices you might be subject to that GasLimit needs to select a published price point to determine if gasoline prices are above your cap.

Click the same link above - and you will find gas station prices in your area - we thought it was a pretty nifty tool as well.

So everyone in blogworld has linked to the interview article on MSNBC with T. Boone Pickens, one of the most prolific energy traders of all time. His thoughts on Gasoline prices and where they can go are quite scary if you are running a business with a heavy gasoline cost structure. click on the link and have a quick read. Can gasoline prices go to $4 per gallon - $5…$6?

The last 2 days have seen gasoline prices increase almost 9¢ on the wholesale market - it will be interesting to see how that will impact retail gasoline prices at the pump. One of the causes for the price jump is the recent inventory report showing a change of zero, when people were expecting an increase of close to 2 million gallons.

Here’s a short clip I found on Yahoo Finance about the recent easing of gasoline prices (if you call a few cents per gallon “easing”) - will OPEC keep things tight? is this a Crude Oil issue, or a Refining issue? And finally - without any particular news causing gasoline prices to be so high - what happens when something does come along to give us a price jump???

So another week goes by and the price craze continues. First its prices rising to levels unseen then the news on Nigeria comes out to make the oil markets react with a $2/barrel drop - If there is a lesson to be learned, we think it is that the wild swings in prices and the drastic changes from week to week are probably here to stay for the unforseen future - Interestingly - and this is something we think readers should keep a close eye on, is whether or not the Nigeria news will have as great an impact on Gasoline prices as it has had on Oil prices or are we in a place right now where the Gasoline supply-demand picture is independent of its Oil brethren…