Gas Prices: Boy, was I wrong….

Back in May, I wrote an article on the continuously rising gas prices and future predictions. At the time, the oil set a new all-time record at $134/barrel and the specialists were forecasting at least $200 by the end of this year.

A premium gallon of gasoline was selling for $4.65 at gas stations near Downtown Chicago and a few weeks later, even higher, I remember paying very close to $5/gallon. Despite the optimistic statements of other specialists that the gas prices will fall after the summer rush, I was one of the people believing that we will be paying way over $5/gallon by the end of this year.

I ran a poll on here and many of you have agreed with me, 33% said “Way above $5/gallon and even closer to $6″, others were a little more optimistic, 30% said “Under $5″ and only 10% of you believed the gas price will stay the same.

Fast forwarding seven months and today we have some of the lowest gas prices we have seen in the last seven years, with a national average of $1.77/gallon, compared to $2.37 a month ago and $3.03 a year ago.

Our friends at Carscoop, citing Merrill Lynch Commodity Strategist Francisco Blanch and Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski, say that crude oil prices may very well fall below $25 a barrel by early next year.

“A temporary drop below $25 a barrel is possible if the global recession extends to China and significant non-OPEC cuts are required,” Blanch said.

The result: gas prices of less than $1 a gallon.

Are they a little too optimistic? I am not sure, but this time I’m going to sit it out and not adventure in predicting anything, I learned from the recent past. But I will let you one more time vote in a short poll.

P.S Feel free to leave comments with your predictions.

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[Source: Carscoop ]

7 Responses to “Gas Prices: Boy, was I wrong….”

Dave says:

December 7, 2008 at 10:49 pm

$1 a gallon maybe…$1 a barrel…dream on…but i’ll take that as a typo.

Horatiu B. says:

December 8, 2008 at 12:48 am

@Dave: But of course Fixed now. But hey, 20-30 yrs from now, all electric engines and all solar energy, maybe $1/barrel will become reality.

roffle waffle says:

December 8, 2008 at 1:41 am

I think we are looking at a WORLDWIDE recession, so yeah, $1 a gallon isn’t far off because demand is falling. May be a good time to buy that pre-paid gas thing

Lee says:

December 8, 2008 at 10:13 am

I don’t see it as that unrealistic. I’ve already seen it for under $1.50/gallon at quite a few local gas stations, and it seems to continue to drop.

Kia Soul says:

December 8, 2008 at 11:14 am

Nice to see prices falling, but this is only temporary. This is related to the world crisis. With industrial output slowing, the demand for oil is falling.

Once economy turns up again, gas prices will rise even higher than they were this summer. Just reat today about when’s this gonna happen and the article said gas prices will continue to fall this and next year, but will come back in 2012, and to record highs in 2013!

So you weren’t wrong about that.

Bikie says:

December 8, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Not going to happen.
the Dems will add a surcharge tax to force Green $olutions. Ride the trolley cars etc.

clara says:

December 9, 2008 at 6:20 pm

@roffle waffle:

Why is demand falling? I can’t imagine that the few people that are able to change their driving/flying habits could cause this much of a swing. It has to be undervalued; oil abstinence can’t last forever.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if we never ran out of oil at all, but the oil companies went out of business just trying to get the stuff out of the ground?