Sunday, March 27, 2016

Wait, Did Gas Prices Just Go Up?

Ever since I heard about how low gas prices are bad for our economy, I've sent pictures of the low gas prices to my friends every time I get gas. So during spring break, I pull in to get gas and look up to take a picture and realize gas prices went up. . . about 30 cents. I'm sitting at 7-11 waiting to get my gas and wondering, how are gas prices up? I don't remember a lot of things, but if I've learned one thing in economics this year it's that we have a surplus of oil which equals low gas prices.
This increase in price had me wondering, what happened? Was there an oil spill I didn't hear about? Did a million gallons of oil just disappear into thin air? Our amount of oil supply couldn't have changed that much, so what was causing this increase in gas prices? According to CBS, during spring and summer gas prices increase because refineries have their annual maintenance done. All during this time, places switch to their summer-grade fuel. Summer-grade fuel, is gas that has a lower RVP (Reid Vapor Pressure). RVP is a measure of how easily fuel evaporates at a certain temperature. Summer-grade fuel has a low RVP to help prevent fuel from evaporating too much on a hot day. Winter-grade fuel is just the opposite, high RVP to help fuel evaporate on cold days.
The change from winter to summer-grade fuel requires a bunch of work at the refineries and the summer-grade is more expensive to produce. This is why gas prices increased and why I couldn't send a picture of low gas prices to my friends and say "what a shame."

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