Fuel Prices

I imagine with the way fuel prices are going TM's might be a hot item soon!!!
Probably help with resale but who will be wanting to get rid of theirs! haha

Fuel prices usually go up in spring and then drop back down in the summer months. This is just the nature of the beast!
We try to get gas at Sam's Club because they are usuall cheapest and it is 89 octane. Prices here in Moline Il are $2.59 and we just got gas at Sam's in Davenport accros the river for $2.39. Not Bad,eh!

Midwest Dave

But be sure to read about the added risk of contaminated gas. That cost me $230 including towing last year. This year, I will carry a spare fuel filter for insurance.

Government Predicts 25-Cent-Per-Gallon Rise
And Bigger Spikes in Texas, Much of East Coast
By JOHN J. FIALKA
April 12, 2006

Gas prices this summer will be at least 25 cents more per gallon than
last summer's steep prices, averaging $2.62 a gallon between April 1
and Sept. 30, the Energy Department predicted. Some populous parts of
the country, including big cities in Texas and parts of the middle and
upper East Coast, could see "unexpected supply disruptions" that will
drive prices even higher.

The spike may be short-lived, though. Unless there is more hurricane
damage to oil production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the Energy
Department predicted gas prices will begin to edge down before the end
of summer.

About 75% of the expected price increase this summer is due to the
rising price of the crude oil used to make gasoline, the DOE said.
That is because some production facilities are still down after last
year's hurricanes, and world demand continues to be high.

But a significant new factor is also driving prices up. Broad energy
legislation enacted last summer has helped push oil companies to shift
from one gasoline additive -- known as MTBE -- to another -- ethanol.
Most oil companies have decided to make the change by May 5.

The Energy Department estimated that a "few pennies" of the predicted
25-cent increase at the pump will come from the rising cost of
ethanol. Its use in blended gasoline has shot from 1.8 million barrels
a month in 2002 to 7.4 million barrels as producers struggle to meet
soaring demands, though the ethanol price is expected to come down
soon as the industry expands. But the rapid switch to ethanol is also
causing shortages of gasoline, tank trucks, blending equipment and
skilled labor.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman1 discusses how gas prices may spike to
all-time highs this summer. And AAA's Geoff Sundstrom2 explains how
that may affect motorists.MTBE, like ethanol, is used to reduce smog
in urban areas and meet federal air-pollution limits. So the places
hardest hit by the switch tend to be cities, particularly ones that
are far from the Midwest, where ethanol is produced mainly from corn,
and that are dependent on pipelines to get oil. Ethanol-blended
gasoline is very difficult to move by pipeline. Some big states --
including California, New York, and Connecticut -- already made the
switch, giving dealers as much as two years to prepare.

Last summer, Congress gave up on a compromise that contained a slower
phaseout of MTBE. At the same time, it approved a mandate requiring
oil companies to use more ethanol, and it ended a requirement that
refiners use a category of additives that included MTBE.

The net effect of those moves has been to make most oil companies
uncomfortable about taking the legal risks involved in further MTBE
use. MTBE that leaks from gasoline tanks quickly taints groundwater.
That has caused a spate of costly lawsuits against oil companies and
bans on its use in 26 states. Up to now, oil companies have argued
that Congress required the use of MTBE, so they weren't liable for
damages. Under the energy bill, that requirement expires May 5.

Because there are no rail facilities to receive shipments of ethanol
in Dallas, major oil companies have hired fleets of tank trucks to
bring it in from Kansas, driving up the price of leasing the trucks
and drivers. "Someone has to pay for all this, and the consumer is the
one that always gets to pay eventually," explains Madalyne Lange, who
sets the gasoline prices for the Douglass-owned stations.

Contamination

Ethanol has its own problems. Ethanol-blended gasoline is difficult to
ship by pipeline, because ethanol is attracted to water, and pipelines
often contain some water. Traditionally, gasoline-station tanks also
contain some water from condensation and storm runoff. That was no
problem with the MTBE blend because the water stays in the bottom of
tanks. With ethanol-blended gasoline, however, as little as 40 gallons
in a 10,000 gallon tank causes the gasoline to become unblended into
layers of low-octane gasoline or watery ethanol, both of which can
foul a car engine.

The expensive computerized fuel gauges in many of Mr. Douglass's
outlets aren't capable of detecting this problem, so his company has
had to retrain operators of some 80 gas stations on how to measure
their gasoline tanks with a long wooden stick, tipped with a chemical
that turns bright red when it detects water.

Ethanol also removes a sodium deposit that is present, though
harmless, on the walls of MTBE-blended gasoline tanks and puts it back
into the gas. Oil companies, starting with Exxon Mobil Corp., warned
Mr. Douglass that he must have his tanks flushed out with
high-pressure hoses, but then, he says, the companies hired all the
contractors that know how to do this for their own stations. So he has
to buy special filters to put on each pump to keep the gunk from
flowing into customers' cars.

Some effects of the switch will be beyond the control of either
gasoline distributors or the oil companies. To blend in ethanol,
refiners have to remove some gasoline components or risk violating
air-pollution standards. The net effect of the switch will cause about
a 1.7% shrinkage in the nation's gasoline supplies, according to the
Energy Department. Meanwhile, demand for the fuel will be up by 1.5%.

[Bill]

Interesting, Don. I recall an article in the Arizona Republic about a year ago concerning gas prices. It pointed out that here in the southwest, much of the rise in gas prices is due to the fact that we use close to a dozen tailored "recipes" for gasoline. There is a federally-mandated summer mix and winter mix, of course, but there are also a bunch of state-mandated variations on these mixes. Arizona has at least two special mixes, one for urban areas (Phoenix and Tucson) and one for rural areas. California has several mixes, which are not the same as any of the Arizona mixes. New Mexico has at least one special mix. Colorado, of course, uses a lot of 85 octane, which is rare outside Colorado. And so on and so forth. And it is all complicated by the fact that most of the southwest is supplied by a single pipeline (Google up Kinder-Morgan for details), that runs from Texas, across NM and AZ to southern California. The pipeline can carry only one mix at a time, of course, so it pumps one mix to one destination for a week, then has to switch to another mix for another destination, and so on. Some of the ultimate tweaking of the mix is done at the storage tank farm - but a lot is done at the point of origin in Texas. No wonder gas is expensive! There was actually talk last summer (when gas was spiking past $1.75 a gallon!) about suspending some of the mix laws until things calmed down.

I would hope that the elimination of MTBE will at least simplify the recipe book. I'm certainly not a petrochemist, but I would think that something on the order of 4 different recipes would be enough to satisfy everyone. We'll see.

Bill