The Price of Gas Will Rise Over the Spring and Summer of 2011

This is from Yahoo! Finance - Canada. This comment is from Exxon CEO, Rex Tillerson, "Americans didn't change their driving and spending habits until gasoline prices topped $4 per gallon. Gas peaked at $4.11 in July of that year. " (Yahoo! Finance Cananda 2011). Tillerson was speaking of 2008, when the price the price of oil rose to nearly $150 per barrel.

Gas is already over $4.00 in some places in California. The price of oil per barrel is at $104, up 20% over the last 3 weeks due to the civil unrest in Libya. Tilerson talks about not seeing a reduction in demand for fuel. In my opinion, this is because people have to have gas! This doesn't mean the rise in the price of oil is not hurting our economy. It just means that people have to have transportation, regardless of the expense. I, myself, have cut down on unncessesary trips in my vehicle. I hate to see what is going to happen if the price of gas keeps going up. A few years ago, when gas got to over $5/gallon, my company gave us a $100 bonus in a pay period, just because the employees were struggling with this so much.

A big concern internationally is that the civil unrest in Libya could spread to surrounding countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, and affect the oil crisis even more. Americans and other countries over the world are concerned about the soaring price of oil. We are told that there is no oil shortage, however we will continue to see gas prices rise over the spring and summer months of 2011. The Exxon CEO goes on to report that the company will spend almost $100 million per day over the next five years, devoted to oil and gas production projects. That is somewhere near $37 billion annually. Tilerson believes that everyone will realize that supply is at a normal level, and prices will go down.

Americans living paycheck to paycheck only hope such is the case.

Sources:

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Exxon-Tillerson-says-oil-capress-3420981963.html?x=0