Running on Empty

WAFF took this photo of gas at $5.35/gallon in the Shoals!

On Friday afternoon, Matt and I both noticed the really long lines at the gas stations - I'm sure everyone else noticed too. I didn't really give it much thought because, after all, the price of oil late last week had fallen to about $100 a barrel.

I should have thought better of it. I had a long list of errands to run on Saturday and less than a quarter of a tank to do them on. Matt and I got midway through our errands and the gas light came on. We'd already passed numerous stations that were completely sold out (even at $4.39/gal) and I was getting a little nervous.

Matt doesn't seem to get as nervous as I do when the gas light comes on. He loves to tell me the maximum number of miles he's driven with the light on in each of our vehicles, but it always makes me anxious. I realize that you've got a buffer, but why test it out?

Anyway, back to the gas stations... So, what gives? Why is everyone sold out? It's not because the supply has been cut. In fact, after Ike caused very limited damage to the refineries in the Gulf, the price of oil has now closed at under $96/barrel - for the first time since March 4th! (This is $50 less than the high, set in mid-July). No, we're not running low on oil. It's due to all of the people freaking out whenever they hear about a storm coming (or maybe when they see the long lines at the pump). As a result, they race to fill up, even if they don't need it. If people would only get the amount of gas that they normally consume, we wouldn't be running out of fuel all over town.

But, on top of this, I'm also annoyed with all of the price gouging. I don't know that price fixing is the answer (and I definitely don't think we need to legislate more laws controlling fuel prices), but it does get under my skin to see so many of the local stations bumping their fuel prices by $.70 in less than 24-hours. The price of their fuel deliveries did not change that amount, so why raise it so much?

We finally found a station that had fuel on Saturday and were so excited that it was under $4 a gallon (how can you really be happy about $4/gallon gas?!) Kangaroo also had notes on all of the pumps asking the customers to limit their transactions to 10 gallons at a time so that they would be able to serve all of their customers' needs. I was so impressed! I hope that earns them a lot of good will. Between them and the Exxon on Jeff, they were the only ones we found that didn't raise their rates to an insane level. I definitely took notice and will make an effort to shop there first from now on. :)