Life will get harder all over the US because of Katrina.

The day after the hurricane, I said gas would rise near $4 here. Now it seems it is happeining.

Since oil controls everything in the US - travel, marchandise, energy, I don't think the prices of oil is going to get any better. If that comes true, everything you buy at the store will cost more.

I've seen some talk of deisel being rationed in some area's - ya know what that could mean.

To me, it looks like many things will branch off this storm that will effect the US forever. I hope I am wrong, but for some reason, I think this will be even larger than we see now.

How can a hurricane decide what prices fuel will rise to?

The prices were on their way up long before Katrina came along.
Have you not noticed what is going on in the Gulf right now?
That might shed some light on to your intial post................

Originally posted by Bikereddie
How can a hurricane decide what prices fuel will rise to?

The prices were on their way up long before ...

yep, thats technically correct
any event or hurricane cannot determine the price of fuel,
but the speculators can & do- -
when the movers-shakers see that a hurricane can or should disrupt
natural gas or petroleum supplies...well the futures are bidded up

then down the road with the persistant higher costs...it all trickles-down
to the consumer...& viola! higher prices !

as far as the uptrend in the price of oil "long before".
..i think the prospects of a Gulf Hurricane,
with the potential of hurricane Katrina taking out oil producing platforms helped in the steady rise in the cost of Gulf Oil
in anticipation of the storm.
The US National Weather Service & National Hurricane Center, provided us data

what is the cause? global warming-peak oil-iraq-anwar-shale oil reserves-
sunspot cycles......just asking

I live in the UK, with fuel prices being among the highest in the Western World.
Our prices were increased three weeks ago. Did our weather men have some kind of fore knowledge of "Katrina"? Hmmmmmmmm

Those weather guys ought to be working for the fuel guys.

I understand what you are saying, but i do not think that "Katrina" played a part in the rise of fuel costs.

Things are happening further afield to warrant fuel increases...........

Katrina influenced the price of oil because there are many refineries in the gulf area, and a lot of oil passes through the mississippi i believe. Up here in Pennsylvania, we dont use gulf oil, but our prices go up too, governer rendell is watching this and keeping note. so you see, thats how a hurricane can influence the price of oil

The price of gasoline went up 15 cents immediately after the hurricane across Canada. Canadian fuel companies said the price raise was direclty because the Mississippi was cut off and the refineries in the Gulf were not working.

Seems rather strange considering Canada doesn't import gasoline from the USA, nor do we import oil from the USA, nor did the supply of oil get cut off from OPEC (to Canada anyway). Now, if they'd said, "Gas will now be 20 cents a litre higher and 15 cents of each litre will go directly to disaster relief," I would be all for it (but it's probably unconstitutional to have a required charitable donation tax). What it appears to be in Canada is nothing more than a greedy money grab disguised as something caused by the hurricane 2000 miles from here. Unless, of course, Canada's refineries are now redirecting twice as much refined gas into the USA and supply/demand has caused the price to skyrocket (then again, that sounds like a money grab as well). Perhaps the refineries in the Gulf somehow subsidize the price of gas across North America, maybe the alaskan pipeline (and the Alberta pipeline) are both currently shut down because there is nowhere for that oil to go and hence that income is currently cut off?

But, this hurricane has indeed directly raised the price of gas a lot. 15 cents a litre (that's about 60 cents a gallon) in one day is a pretty big price increase I think. And the major refineries (Shell, Petro Canada, Esso, etc) have all said it's because of the hurricane damage in the south. This will effect everything, the price of every single item you purchase anywhere will have to go up (you have to burn gas to transport stuff to the retailer). And, 2 years later, once life is almost back to normal, will the price of gas go down? Of course not, the oil companies always make money off the suffering of others. When times are good they make money, when times are bad they make even more money.

I know the weather shouldn't decide higher gas prices, but I bet we don't see the prices go back down to where they were befire Katrina. Seems to be trend lately with national and global economics. I think everything is going to get higher and stay there.

[edit on 3-9-2005 by godservant]

Gas has already gone down in Corpus Christi, TX. Wednesday it jumped $0.50. But as of today, it has gone down $0.20/0.30. Don't know if this being a refining town has anything to do with it.