Gas prices continue post-Sandy drop

Reduced demand for gas in the wake of Hurricane Sandy promises to help keep gas prices moving steadily downwards, according to Consumer Energy Report.

|
Danny Johnston/AP
Lower fuel prices are advertised at North Little Rock, Ark., gas station Tuesday. Prices at the pump have continued to fall, with a national average of $3.53 per gallon recorded on Wednesday, according to Consumer Energy Report.

With five refineries lying in the path of Hurricane Sandy when it made landfall earlier this week, there were fears that gasoline prices across the country would jump due to a stoppage in production, but reduced demand in the wake of the storm promises to help keep those prices moving steadily downwards.

With excellent warning of the storm’s approach and meteorological models that proved to be highly accurate, East Coast refineries were also able to take preemptive action by either reducing operations or temporarily closing altogether. (See more: Why Sandy’s Impact Will Differ From Katrina)

The Philips 66 refinery, based in Linden, New Jersey, is one of the country’s largest, with the potential to cause headaches in the oil industry if it were to suffer extensive storm damage. While the plant did see some flooding in its lower areas, the facility’s decision to close in anticipation of Sandy saved it from the worst of the potential damage; it remained offline yesterday as systems were inspected and is expected to begin operations today. 

Between the forward-thinking precautions taken by local refineries and the travel-stymieing affects of Sandy as it flooded roads and canceled thousands of flights, the negative effect of the storm on slowly dropping gasoline prices is expected to be surprisingly minimal, welcome news for motorists as they look towards the Thanksgiving holiday and beyond.

“We’re not going to see prices move higher because of this storm. We’re going to see prices move lower,” said Tom Kloza, an OPIS oil analyst. “My guess is we’ll have 20 to 25 states that will have prices below where they were a year ago. It could be in the $3.40s (per gallon) by next week. There’s a huge swatch of the country that’s going to be get closer to $3.” (See more: Do Falling Gasoline Prices Help President Obama?)

True to those predictions, prices at the pump have continued to fall, with a national average of $3.53 per gallon recorded on Wednesday; that price comes in at a cent lower than Monday’s average and a full 11 cents lower than that of last week.

Source: Gas Prices Continue to Fall in the Aftermath of Sandy

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Gas prices continue post-Sandy drop
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/1101/Gas-prices-continue-post-Sandy-drop
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe