On another website, I read a fairly detailed discussion of gas pricing. While it used to be supply and demand, blah, blah, blah. Now it is more the commodities market. Fuel is made and then sold on the comodities market. The producers, shippers and refiners are now out of the picture. The commodities traiders / companies in some, or many, cases still own the fuel after it is delivered to the station. They can then control the price on a daily basis. Even to the loss of the fuel station operator. Here is the pertinant date:
This is a long story but i will make it short,The fuel prices are changed daily by the brokers that are holding the paper on the fuel in the stations tanks(hopefully the little guy has not paid for his upon delivery), they do this around 4:00 pm daily( most stations make .03 to .07 per gallon), As for price , gas / fuel to make it to 2.96 per gallon at the pump you need $98.00 crude, have we seen that no. There are to many people trading in oil paper creating a false demand,You can also blame a lot of the Shortages on the electronic chalk boards that these comodities are traded on , no records are saved on these and you can buy your own oil and run up the price and it is never recorded. also watch the supply chain as they move the oil around the country it causes a shortage because it is not here anymore it is over there.The inventories never change it just shows up the next week when it has stopped moving around.In short the oil is here , they need to stop playing games and let this country get back on it's feet.
Check out this site every Wed. about 12:30 EST.