Reply #19: "The cost per barrel is higher now than it was then" [View All]

[NickB79]

You just answered your own question in a round-about way :-) The answer is that, the gas we're buying now was refined from oil that was purchased months ago at $35-$40/barrel. A month or two from now, when the $48/barrel oil we're seeing now is refined and reaches the market, THEN the cost will carry through and push up the gas prices again. This is a futures market that they're talking about, not the oil the companies are refining right now. Companies lock in oil orders months before they actually take delivery in order to ensure a steady flow.

What's going to suck even more than the gas prices are the heating oil prices, if we have a bad winter in much of the US.