Oil Prices | featured news

The price of gas is going up so fast that even government reports can't keep up with it. A few days after the federal Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that the average price of regular gas in the U.S. is $3.19 per gallon -- marking the highest average February price since the government started keeping track in 1990 -- the AAA fuel gauge report on Thursday put the national average at $3.22. The price rose three cents per gallon in a day.

Oil prices turned lower on Monday as reassurances from Saudi Arabia that extra supply needs had been met soothed market fears over the spread of protests to oil-producer Oman.

Stocks fell sharply and oil prices spiked to their highest level in two years on Tuesday as investors worried about the increasingly violent unrest in Libya.

U.S. airlines collected $2.56 billion in baggage fees during the first nine months of the year. With industry experts expecting slower economic growth and rising oil prices in 2011, those ancillary fees aren't going anywhere.

BP lifted its estimate of the likely cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill by $7.7 billion to $39.9 billion on Tuesday, pushing its profits down sharply in spite of higher oil and gas prices.

Exxon Mobil 3Q income increases 55 percent to $7.35 billion on higher oil prices

The oil giant’s second-quarter income nearly doubled as oil prices and margins to process crude into fuel rebounded.

Oil consumption has fallen, demand from U.S. motorists for gasoline is flat at best and refiners that turn crude into fuel are operating well below capacity. Yet oil prices keep marching toward $90 a barrel, pushing gasoline toward $3 a gallon in many markets, and prompting American drivers to ask, "What gives?"

Blame it on the same folks who brought you $140 oil and $4 gasoline in 2008: Wall Street speculators.

Oil prices fell 3.2% Monday, to below $70 a barrel, as further signs of weak fuel demand raised expectations that prices may have raced ahead of the nascent economic recovery.

Prices have dropped as traders and investors acknowledge that a global recovery will take longer than hoped.