Gas, Oil Prices | featured news

What only weeks ago was seen as a serious threat to the economic recovery could now turn into a stimulus everyone can love. Oil and gasoline prices are sinking, giving relief to businesses and consumers who a few weeks ago seemed about to face the highest fuel prices ever.

The price of oil suffered its biggest one-day decline in nearly six months Friday, falling below $100 per barrel for the first time since February. A drop in gasoline prices can't be far behind.

Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil company, reported a slightly higher-than-expected quarterly profit as rising oil prices and refining margins made up for a decline in oil and gas production.

With gasoline prices hovering at $4 a gallon nationally, many Americans are making tough choices: scaling back summer vacations, driving less or ditching the car altogether. Some seniors are choosing a tank of gas over their prescriptions....

Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil admitted last week that the price of oil–based purely on supply and demand- should be in the $60 to $70 a barrel range. The reason it’s above $100 a barrel, Tillerson explained, is due to the oil majors using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, and speculation that is engineered by the high-frequency trading of quantitative hedge funds.

Oil prices plummeted by almost 9 percent on Thursday as traders worried that American drivers were beginning to balk at the price of gasoline.

Chevron says first-quarter earnings rose 36 percent. The company received higher prices for the oil it produced, and also made more money from refining oil.

Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell Plc reported big jumps in first quarter earnings and beat forecasts, thanks to high oil prices and healthy refining margins.

The price of gas is going up so fast that even government reports can't keep up with it. A few days after the federal Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that the average price of regular gas in the U.S. is $3.19 per gallon -- marking the highest average February price since the government started keeping track in 1990 -- the AAA fuel gauge report on Thursday put the national average at $3.22. The price rose three cents per gallon in a day.

After rising nearly every day for the past two months and climbing 67 percent so far this year, it looks like gasoline prices may be ready to take a break.