Oil Prices continue to rise

Gas prices. When you hear those words, what pops into your head? Fuel efficiency? Seemingly unnecessarily high prices? 

To most Americans, all of the above come to mind when filling up the tank. 

When looking at statistics in Pennsylvania gas prices over the past 10 years, 2002 averaged just $1.40 per gallon. 

Only 10 years later, the average cost of gas rose to $3.70 per gallon. 

Since January 2012, the price of gas has already gone up $.25 and it has been determined that prices could rise to around $4.25 per gallon by late April this year. 

This surge in gas prices is due to an increase in the price of oil overseas. The gasoline Americans put into their cars on a daily basis doesn’t just come to America as refined gasoline. It starts out as Brent crude oil from the North Sea. 

From there, it is imported to refineries throughout the United States where it is turned into gasoline and other types of fuel. 

West Texas Intermediate, which is a grade of oil used as a reference to determine pricing for oil in the US, has recorded that globally, prices of barrels are up since since last year, reaching $105. 

So far in the last month, the price of oil by the barrel has risen about $4. 

Gas prices are figured to rise by April 2012 because every spring, refineries shut down to change the type of gasoline made. This results in lower amounts of gasoline during the months of March and April, creating higher gas prices. 

With this continuous rise in gas prices and oil prices, many Americans are going on fewer vacations. 

“Stay-cations,” when families stay at home but go out to surrounding places to where they live to have fun, are becoming more and more popular because it involves using less gas and saving more money. 

An example of a stay-cation would be going to a nearby amusement park for the day, and then going home to sleep, or going to a state park for the day to spend time in nature admiring the flowers and plants and then returning home at the end of the day. 

Gas prices overall are higher in bigger states like New York and California because these states have the highest tax rates.  

Currently in the state of New York, one gallon of gas costs $4.09. This cost is very high compared to other states like Pennsylvania, because in New York, $.60 of each gallon goes toward state taxes. 

Tom Kloza, the chief oil analyst at OPIS (Oil Price Information Service), said, “Americans spent 8.4 percent of their household income on gasoline when gas averaged an all-time high of $3.51 a gallon.” 

This price has continued to increase throughout the past year and will continue to increase until the government can find a way to get the price to decrease.