$3.55 at Costco in NW Va. this evening.
There are a few countries that are screwing up oil production in a dramatic way. Venezuela is one, with all the corruption that permeates the oil industry in that area. Even though they have pretty large reserves, and are finding more, the drilling and production side is cursed due to that countries "inefficiencies", as it has been for the last 10-15 years.
I forgot to mention this - investing in Venezuelan oil is extraordinarily risky. You are more likely to have have your stuff nationalized or confiscated in some made-up scandal , than to turn a profit. And without western oil technology and equipment it is darn difficult to even increase production on proven reserves, much less new discoveries. China might risk it, but it seems unlikely.
Venezuela has the world's largest reserves but there fields have been completely abused with no investment. They produce only about 25% of what they did at their peak. Much of it is likely fixable but who is going to pour billions into Venezuela? Last time off-shore companies did that it was nationalized out from under them.
Someone tell that to my local grocery stores because red meat has indeed skyrocketed, sandwich meats, milk and fruits as well. When a small pack of sandwich turkey slices jumps from $7.50 to $10 in a span if a few weeks...that's pretty much the definition of skyrocket. (Same pack we've always bought).
It’s not big oil even though everyone likes to blame them.
Volume inside "pays" for volume outside.
They make money from crude oil - gasoline is just a low risk/low profit stream.
Yep, fountain drinks are the obscene profit tools of a stop n go …
Production goes into decline - jobs lost - OPEC decides how to respond …
They haven't been drilling as much in the shale fields in a while. You can look up US rig counts by week all the way back to 2011. When those fields were being formed from like 2015-2019 rig counts were over 1000 consistently. Its been about half that during the pandemic and has not gone back up. Shale wells only produce for about 1 to 3 years depending on the well. Lots of predictions that were currently at peak US oil again or getting close in the next couple years without increased drilling.
I was going to say the same thing, and don't forget their weekly reset. In my area it's usually Wednesday. I'll check the Speedway app for prices and suddenly, every station on the list is the exact same price. In a day or two certain stations will start to drift down and the rest will follow. Until the following week's reset where the process starts over again.
Charleston is Friday. Big jump Friday morning. I guess everyone gets paid Friday. Also tourists. Monday it’s Less again.