Oil, Gas | featured news

The price of oil suffered its biggest one-day decline in nearly six months Friday, falling below $100 per barrel for the first time since February. A drop in gasoline prices can't be far behind.

Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil company, reported a slightly higher-than-expected quarterly profit as rising oil prices and refining margins made up for a decline in oil and gas production.

President Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to help strengthen federal supervision of international oil markets, amid pressure from U.S. voters to take action on rising gasoline prices. The president wants Congress to increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer prices rose modestly in March amid signs a spike in gasoline costs was ebbing, but inflation still outpaced workers' earnings and threatened to undermine consumer spending.

Several factors are behind the relative complacency now compared with the price surge of 2008, analysts say. Gas prices have soared about 15% in the last six months, hitting $3.94 a gallon on average nationwide, and $4.29 in California.

For the majority of the country, $4 gas isn’t going to doom us or our economy. Here’s why.

How much are Americans freaked out by the prospect of paying $4 a gallon at the pump? A whole lot ... and not at all. Like a lot of carless New Yorkers, I am generally confused by bursts of populist outrage over high gas prices. But I have always assumed that the anger is genuine — that hard-working Americans, who already spend a lot on gas, are thrown into turmoil when they have to spend even more. After all, 63 percent of Americans insist that these price increases have caused them some financial hardship.

With gasoline prices hovering at $4 a gallon nationally, many Americans are making tough choices: scaling back summer vacations, driving less or ditching the car altogether. Some seniors are choosing a tank of gas over their prescriptions....

Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil admitted last week that the price of oil–based purely on supply and demand- should be in the $60 to $70 a barrel range. The reason it’s above $100 a barrel, Tillerson explained, is due to the oil majors using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, and speculation that is engineered by the high-frequency trading of quantitative hedge funds.