One of the guys who lives in our community works for a convenience store. He says the internal Texaco prediction for gas prices is $4/gallon in California by the end of the summer, and $3/gallon just about everywhere else.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2001

Answers

I wonder how the price of diesel will do. Supposedly one of the reasons the gas price will be so high is that they were busy producing home heating oil (diesel) at the expense of gasoline.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2001

I'm so out of it right now. I haven't really been following the oil scene, whereas most of last year I was hanging on every word.

So, I think my yawning reaction to this news might be more akin to the general public's. Don't gasoline costs always go up in the summer? California is a special case because of its demands for specific gasoline blends and few refineries tooled up to make it that way.

As far as the rest of us. Well, just make sure you don't see this as a U.S.-only issue. It's a global market. Most of our gasoline is refined in this country, but we still import quite a bit. If our costs go to high, then that will draw more imports.

Of course, it could cut either way if our costs are actually lower. We could end up exporting more than we have been.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2001

One principal issue is RFG, reformulated gas. Turns out there are some 50 different blends sold over the USA over a year. Supplies of MTBE used for RFG are in very short supply, due to the fact that the butane used to make MTBE was not stripped out of natgas lines this winter. So we enter the summer driving season with low inventories of MTBE, and as a result, if you live in an area required to sell the oxygenated RFG, you are going to be SOL. Now imported gas will not help the MTBE problem a lot.

The straw that may break the camel's back is if blackouts in the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia cause refineries to go down. From posts I've read on many boards the scuttlebutt is that an hour's loss of power may result in damage that takes many days to fix. I can easily see $4 gas in CA this summer, and $3 in midwest areas required to sell RFG.

Yesterday Senator Schumer of NY was quoted as predicting $6 gas in five years. I believe Chuck is an optimist.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2001

I saw an earlier article that Chicago area was planning to ban MTBE for this year but don't know if they followed through..

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2001