Something astonishing happened yesterday…Oil trading was thin all day. The price barely moved. Then, in the very last hour, BOOM!
US airlines are forecast to lose a record $7.2 billion this year, in part because most use gas-guzzling elderly Boeing 767s as opposed to newer, more fuel-efficient planes common in European fleets.
American Airlines, Continental and Delta have all announced cutbacks due to rising fuel costs.
Consumers are also being squeezed. USA Today reports that summer airfares in the US are set to rise by as much as four times thanks to spiraling oil prices.
“The sector-wide downturn is pretty textbook,” says Theo Casey in Fleet Street Daily.
“Captain, we’re running out of fuel!” “Don’t panic! Just burn up what little we have. And burn it faster!” Gordon Brown, crisis buster extraordinaire, has a solution to the energy crisis. Are you ready?
It’s unfortunate that the U.S. Supreme Court, in its ruling last week that U.S. currency is unfair to the blind, did not make the next logical step and declare it unfair to everyone who buys gasoline.
High gas prices — now at about $4 a gallon — are triggering a surge in hybrid-car sales in the US. This from the LA Times:
Although hybrid cars account for only about 3% of U.S. car sales, their share is growing rapidly. Sales of hybrid cars surged 25% during the first four months of this year compared with the same period last year. And the pace accelerated last month, when sales jumped 58%. That outpaced the overall April sales gain of 18% for small fuel-efficient cars and comes as total new-vehicle sales are slumping.
As high prices at the pumps and the rise of biofuels cut into demand for gasoline, US oil refiners are switching their attention to diesel.
“The trend that is important behind the story of the future expansions is the downtrend in gasoline,” said Joanne Shore, analyst for the U.S. Energy Information Administration, speaking to Thomson Reuters.
“We feel that demand for distillates is going to be higher than gasoline for the next several years.
The Chicago Sun Tribune has this gas price projection for weary commuters:
Drivers will likely need to become comfortable with gas at $4 a gallon, as oil experts say an era of historic pain at the pump will endure well beyond the Memorial Day weekend, when prices traditionally peak.
You might trade in that GMC Yukon for a Honda Civic, skip the highway for the bike lane and redefine that time-honored tradition of the road trip.
The increase in Saudi Arabia’s oil production in response to a request by President Bush amounts to only a “token” rise in output, according to an oil expert quoted in Bloomberg.
“It’s just a token increase but it shows that the Saudis realize just how important it is for the president to not come back empty handed,” said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. “This is about a lot more than oil, the special relationship between the countries is at stake.”
Oil crisis 2008: You know when things are getting bad for the oil industry when legendary oil investor T. Boone Pickens starts buying into wind energy.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Pickens, through Mesa Power, ordered 667 wind turbines from General Electric to begin a $10 billion wind-farm project in Texas that will be the nation’s largest.
Delivery of the equipment will begin in mid-2010, Dallas-based Mesa said today in a statement. When completed in 2014, the Pampa Wind Project in northern Texas will be capable of producing 4,000 megawatts,
Brazil is a lot like a person who gets a new job, pays off some of his debts, and has his credit score upgraded.