Petrol Prices... $5.299 in the USA

As of the closing bell on Wall Street today, the national average for a gallon of gas is $3.99. Oil was trading at $138.83 per barrel.

Who/what sets the price of oil per barrel? OPEC - no, USA - yes.

Supply-demand - ONLY if you are living in a different dimension. Although this does have some effect on the price, it is no longer the true measure of how to set the price of oil.

ENRON - YES - this is how it is done. ENRON figured out how to work the energy markets to make record killings on the electricty trade. Think CA rolling outages when CA was making enough power in-state to power several neighboring states (which they were). Issue was during this time that they were not paying enough. To "teach" them a lesson Ken Lay decided to rape them on the price of a kWh.

This occured because there was very little to no regulation on the power industry at the time. There hasn't been any regulation on the oil trading either - in this country or abroad. Actually oil is traded on the US market. Our nation sets the price. Without regulation, companies like - I don't know - Haliburton and Mobil-Exxon are able to trade the price of a barrel of oil to whatever they want.

Why? By raising the price of oil on the market today - they are able to charge whatever they want at the pump for oil THEY actually bought probably over a year ago... In reality (from inside sources at Exxon-Mobil here in Fairfax and from environmental sources) there is NOWHERE for oil to be places when/if it gets here... To the point where storage facilities are at over 100% capacity.

US refining is at about 16% - according to the President of BP (he further stated they are REQUIRED by the US government to keep it that way). The processed fuel tanks in some areas are acually filled with crude.

(the CA explosion earlier in the 2000's (at the ENRON time) was in a facility which hadn't been turned on in years. A crew activated the facility yearly. During this particular instant they didn't fall all the safety procedures for an unrunning processing facility with tragic consequesnces)...

Highest in the USA today --> Groveland, CA at $5.299

Lowest in the USA today --> Juneau, AK $3.469