Why Are Gas Prices So High?

Why are gas prices so quick to shoot up when the price of oil goes up, but when the price of oil goes down...?

gas prices still stay high and take a while to catch up. I noticed that when oil per barrel peaked around $147 a few weeks ago, gas stations were very quick, almost immediate, to raise prices, however now that it has been falling quite rapidly over the past few days, gas prices still remain relatively the same as they were a few weeks ago. Why is this?

Public Comments

1. Competition dictates the falling price market. As stations compete for you business, a game of 1-ups-manship brings down prices. Station A is charging $4/gal, Station B is charging $3.95/gal. Everybody is buying at Stat.B, so Stat.A has to bring his prices down else he risks losing business. Whereas when prices rise, its a direct result of the commodity costs of acquiring the oil and refining it into gasoline that dictates the rising price. Because if a trader on the NYMEX is willing to pay $3.50/gal for Gasoline and a station has a price tag of $3.00/gal. They in theory could just pump the gas out of the ground and sell it to the trader for $3.5/gal. But before they would do that, they would just raise the price to $3.5/gal at the pump. If you don't pay, the trader on the floor will... And to he who has the money gets the goose.
2. Don't ask our government. They have spent millions investigating the oil co's and still have not a clue.
3. Gas stations lose money as the price goes up, because they are always following the market up. When prices come down it takes a while because they need to regain what they lost on the way up. Pretty simple if you think about it.
4. because it's about THEM making a profit not about YOU saving money. Sorry that's the way people work.