Thursday, March 24, 2011

Libya Crisis sends Gas Prices Soaring in US

“U.S. gasoline prices have increased nearly 33 cents in two weeks, which is the second highest jump in such a short period of time of two weeks in the history of the gasoline market”, said CNN. The jump was the biggest since a 38-cent rise in 05’ driven by Hurricane Katrina. This recent jump is human forced rather than naturally forced. As the opposing forces begin to start what looks like a civil war, we can see that lower gas prices in America are not in our near future. While Libya only supplies the U.S. with 3% of their oil, you can still see how much this has affected the people in the United States. Although Libya’s oil is only in demand by small refineries, as this Libyan oil supply becomes unavailable to them, this will force those smaller companies to then substitute Libyan crude oil for oil from other companies, which will then increase the demand, which will then lead to higher gas prices in the United States. The latest Lundberg survey has found that gas prices have raised nearly 83 cents since this time last year. With the Libyan “civil war” in process this leads me to think that this event will lead to hurting the nation’s economic recovery, which the gas demands rising every day.

Written by Sarah Allegro

2 comments:

  1. What do they base gas prices on? Should we release our "emergency reserves"? Why or why not? How would this help or hinder our economy?

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  2. They base their gas prices on the Lundberg survey. I do not think we should release the emergency reserves, even though right now this is bad in America, I think that the eventually the economy will get healthier and the cycle will continue to rise and fall, thus helping and hindering our economy with its natural flow.

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