Recent Gas News/GasBuddy Blog

CNBC -- OPEC could surprise the oil market and decide to change to its output targets at Wednesday's meeting. But comments from oil ministers gathering in Vienna indicate the group will likely stick with existing quotas.

As Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, the minister of the world's top oil producing nation, put it, "The market is in balance, the price is great, inventories are coming down so why should we do anything?" But later, he added that OPEC "will never allow" global oil markets to get too tight to pressure oil prices.

Some observers may have expected the latter comments to contribute to an oil price rally, but even as prices approach $82 a barrel, many traders say they are focused more on charts than OPEC members' chatter.

"Everything is short term now  (go to article)

Forbes -- A new strategy annoucement at Royal Dutch Shell sent its shares up in Tuesday trading as investors reacted positively to the company's plans to take on new projects and cut jobs.

The Netherlands-based oil and gas company said it would increase its oil production by 11% from 2009 levels over the next two years, with a targeted output of 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. The production increase would follow a decade of declines for Shell.

According to the company, 2009 was the best year for exploration in over a decade. Shell added roughly 3.4 billion barrels of oil to proven reserves and 2.4 billion barrels of new resources in Australia, the Gulf of Mexico and North America tight gas. The company's tight gas production increased more than 60% in 2009.  (go to article)

Reuters -- NEW YORK, March 16 - U.S. retail gasoline demand fell 1% in the week to March 12, according to a MasterCard SpendingPulse report released on Tuesday.

Gasoline demand averaged 9.523 million barrels per day last week, down from 9.619 million the previous week, the weekly survey showed.

"The decline is not that large, but the largest declines can probably be attributed to weather-related events," said Michael McNamara, VP Research and Analysis for MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.

Year-on-year, gasoline demand rose by 1.7 percent for the week  (go to article)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/ -- Several Toyota executives appeared Monday morning at a Commons committee hearing in Ottawa to answer questions about recent recalls.  (go to article)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/ -- Honda Canada says it is recalling thousands of vehicles in Canada after some of its customers complained about the feel of brake pedals.

Honda says the recall affects 24,680 Odysseys and 4,137 Elements from the 2007-08 model year. It follows complaints that brake pedals felt "soft" or had to be pushed lower and lower over time before the vehicle would stop.  (go to article)

CNBC -- Oil rose 2 percent Tuesday as the dollar weakened on expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero for a prolonged period, and as OPEC ministers pledged to keep oil output cuts in place at a meeting Wednesday.

The dollar tumbled against a basket of currencies after European finance ministers agreed to technical terms to provide debt-stricken Greece with aid, and as investors expected a Fed policy statement due around 2:15 p.m. Tuesday to renew a pledge to maintain ultra-low rates into the future.  (go to article)

Market Watch -- NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Energy stocks rose Tuesday, as oil prices broke through the $82-a-barrel mark, Royal Dutch Shell issued a bullish production outlook and the Federal Reserve kept its key lending rate unchanged, as expected.

Energy stocks edged up slightly more after the Fed's move, close their highs from earlier in the session. The sector jumped at midday, after Standard & Poor's affirmed Greece's sovereign ratings and oil broke briefly through to $82.05 a barrel.

Setting the pace among sector benchmarks in late afternoon trades, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index /quotes/comstock/10y!i:osx (OSX 212.20, +2.03, +0.97%) rose 1.1% to 213.

 (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- It's a fact that many know about ethanol- it contains less energy than conventional gasoline, and results in lower fuel efficiency. Some states have moved towards "hiding" ethanol content in gasoline, so how does your state stack up?

Fifteen states do not require labeling gasoline that contains ethanol, so if you live in a state not listed below, be sure to check your gas pump to see if there's ethanol present!
The fifteen states that don't require stations to tell you if the gasoline contains ethanol: (alphabetically) California, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Ohio.

What is amazing to me is that...  (go to article)

Battle Creek Enquirer -- Toda America plans to build its $70.1 million Battle Creek manufacturing plant in two phases to produce cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries used in hybrid-power vehicles.It will employ nearly 60 workers when completed. Those workers are projected to earn about $22 per hour.

The MEGA board granted the company a 12.5-percent break on its Michigan Business Tax payments because it is restoring a contaminated brownfield to productive land.  (go to article)

MSN Money -- What ever happened to $200-a-barrel oil?

Maybe it's just been delayed in transit. A recession in the world's developed economies can do that.

Remember Arjun Murti's time in the sun when, in May 2008, the analyst at Goldman Sachs predicted that oil would soon hit $200 a barrel? A number of other prognosticators weren't far behind. T. Boone Pickens predicted in 2008 that oil would hit $150 before the year was out. Some guy named Jim Jubak in April 2008 called for $180 a barrel within two years.

In case you haven't noticed, all of us were wrong. Oil peaked at $147 a barrel in summer 2008 and then plunged to $35 a barrel by June 2009.

Shale gas: Energy game changer?
Go to CNBC

Let me rephrase that: We weren't wrong; we were early.  (go to article)

Yahoo -- DETROIT (AP) -- Honda Motor Co. says it is recalling about 410,000 Odyssey minivans and Element small trucks in the U.S. because of problems with the brake pedals.

 (go to article)

Reuters -- Honda Motor Co said on Tuesday it had received about 8,000 orders for the CR-Z sporty hybrid car in Japan after less than three weeks on the market, or eight times the monthly sales target of 1,000 units.

The two-door compact, which went on sale in Japan on February 26, is the second in a line of low-cost hybrid cars from Japan's No.2 automaker and is scheduled for launch in North America and Europe this summer.

Honda has said it expects to sell 40,000-50,000 of the CR-Z a year worldwide.  (go to article)

SeekingAlpha -- Albert Einstein once said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." So when the editor of Batteries International asked if I could present my analysis of plug-in vehicles in two pages and prove my numbers in a way that any open-minded adult could follow, understand and verify with an Internet search engine, I jumped at the challenge. The article was published yesterday in their Winter Edition.

Since the numbers have profound implications for the energy storage sector and an expected flurry of ill-conceived electric vehicle projects like the planned Tesla Motors IPO, I've decided to reprint the article here and then offer some thoughts and observations on what the numbers mean for prudent investors.

PT Barnum would have been proud.  (go to article)

NY Times -- Though Toyota has reaped endless benefits from California, the company is shutting down a plant in Fremont, Calif., firing 4,700 employees.
 (go to article)

New York Times -- A consortium of Chinese and American renewable energy firms said last week that they had chosen Nevada as the location of a 320,000-square-foot wind turbine manufacturing and assembly plant.

The turbine plant, whose precise site has yet to be announced, will create an estimated 1,000 long-term manufacturing jobs in the state and is expected to be up and running by 2011.

“If the Nevada plant is operational before all the turbines for the 600-megawatt Texas wind farm have been delivered, the remaining turbines could be supplied from the Nevada plant,” Ed Cunningham, managing partner of the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, said in a statement.  (go to article)

New York Times -- After a year of intense criticism from the energy industry and its political rivals, Alberta’s embattled Conservative government last week announced it would ease up on provincial royalties in a bid to kick-start investment and create more jobs, especially in the natural gas and conventional oil sectors.

With energy accounting for 30 percent of Alberta’s economy, the move reverses a royalty framework — essentially a percentage payment made to the province for the privilege of extracting oil and gas resources there.

Those rents, the government now says, had made the province uncompetitive. According to an economic review released last week, a natural gas well drilled in the province has become 12 to 14 percent more expensive than an identical one in the United States.  (go to article)

WRAL Raleigh -- VIENNA — Saudi Arabia's oil minister said Tuesday he expected OPEC to keep output steady for the rest of this year, in comments reflecting expectations that crude prices and supply are in sync with the fitfully recovering world economy.

Along with other OPEC oil ministers, Saudi Arabia's Ali Naimi had already indicated that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would agree to keep production targets at present levels when the 12-nation group meets Wednesday.

But his subsequent comments indicated that the Saudis - the informal policy setters for OPEC - expected the status quo to prevail for all of 2010 - prices between $70 and $85 dollars a barrel and output at daily output at between 25 million barrels and 26 million barrels.
 (go to article)

Racin Today -- An isobutanol blend of BP has been approved for official use in the American Le Mans Series, where the Dyson Racing team intends to campaign the season while competing for the LMP championship in a Lola-Mazda using the biofuel.

The racing application is in advance of plans by BP and DuPont to develop commercial facilities under the Butamax name to manufacture isobutanol for mainsteam use. A racing version of isobutanol and ethanol was used in two demonstration races last year to power the Lola-Mazda team of Dyson Racing, a factory-supported Mazda team where energy company BP is a major sponsor.  (go to article)

Triple Pundit -- Here’s a news flash of sorts: ExxonMobil (XOM), the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, has barrels of money and plans $28 billion in capital spending this year and about $25-$30 billion each year thereafter through 2014.

The company made more than $19 billion last year and generated cash flow of $28.4 billion. Flush with money and confidence, XOM says it is “well positioned for future growth” despite a volatile industry environment across a “range of market conditions.”

“Each of our three business segments, Upstream, Downstream and Chemical, outpaced our competitors,” Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer, said last week during the company’s annual presentation to investment analysts at the New York Stock Exchange.  (go to article)

EcoFriend -- Eco Factor: Zero-emission concept superbike powered by electric motors.

The Hornet is a concept zero-emission superbike by designer Liam Ferguson that has emerged as the winner of the prestigious VACC competition. What sets the superbike apart from the crowd is not just its single-wheeled frame, but its ability to turn around on a dime. The bike is powered by dual 74hp in-wheel hydrogen fuel cell six-phase neodymium-iron electric motors.  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose for the first time in three days as the dollar weakened, buoying demand for most commodities as an alternative investment, and as OPEC ministers indicated they would refrain from increasing production.

Oil gained as much as 1.6 percent as the dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against six trading partners, dropped for the fourth day in five. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said yesterday oil prices are in the right range. The kingdom is OPEC’s biggest producer.

“It’s a pretty good move down for the dollar, and that’s definitely getting things perked up,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Round Earth Capital, a New York-based hedge fund that focuses on food and energy commodities. “The OPEC decision is baked in the cake.”

 (go to article)

Reuters -- LONDON, March 16 - Short-term UK gas prices eased on Tuesday on improved Norwegian pipeline flows, liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies, and the demand dampening effect of warmer weather.

Gas for delivery on Tuesday traded around 36 pence per therm, with erratic flows from Norway over the last few days supporting prices, but contracts for delivery on Wednesday fell to around 34.00 pence, with a flood of LNG expected in the latter half of the week.

Big swings in flows through the Langeled pipeline from Norway have supported gas prices after a power cut briefly shut the Ormen Lange field last week, but strong flows from Britain's LNG import terminals and milder weather have tempered price rises.  (go to article)

Reuters -- Royal Dutch Shell said it was planning a return to robust growth in oil and gas production after seven years of decline and unveiled strong reserves additions that should underpin longer-term growth aims. Europe's largest oil company by market value said it was targeting output of 3.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2012, up from 3.15 million in 2009 -- equivalent to an annual growth rate of 3.5 percent.  (go to article)

Associated Press -- TOKYO (AP) -- A massive global recall, mounting legal bills and a battered reputation add up to a very expensive problem for Toyota.

How expensive? Depends who you ask.

With new developments emerging almost daily, predicting a final pricetag for the Japanese automaker is a daunting calculation that only some analysts have attempted.

The sole figure from Toyota itself came on Feb. 4 along with the company's October-December earnings results. It estimated that the worldwide recall, now involving some 8.5 million cars, could cost up to 180 billion yen ($2 billion), with 100 billion yen for repairs and 80 billion yen in lost sales. It said the recalls may dent global demand for Toyota models by 100,000 vehicles.
 (go to article)

The Wall Street Journal -- LONDON—Crude-oil futures are drifting higher Tuesday, with Nymex light, sweet crude edging above $80 a barrel, but prices continue to move in a tight range as the market adopts a cautious tone ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest-rate meeting later in the day.

Traders will also take note of developments in Vienna, as oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gather there for the group's meeting Wednesday.

The front-month April contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading 23 cents higher at $80.03 a barrel. The front-month April Brent contract on London's ICE futures exchange was 21 cents higher at $78.10 a barrel.

 (go to article)

Alibiba -- Oil demand is picking up, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Tuesday, which could mean OPEC does not have to take any action on supply this year.

"We have been sailing very well and we will continue to sail very well," Naimi, minister for the world's top oil producer, told reporters a day ahead of a meeting of the group, many of whose members have voiced concern it is pumping too much oil.

OPEC agreed members would slash 4.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from output to curb supply at 24.84 million bpd in December 2008 as the chill of recession threatened to shrivel oil demand.

In the past year, rising prices and a hesitant global recovery have encouraged revenue-hungry OPEC members to add supply. In February, OPEC delivered just 53 percent of the pledged output curbs -- down  (go to article)

The Detroit News -- The U.S. auto industry's woes have long made it challenging for Detroit carmakers to recruit top talent. Now, the fat paychecks and big bonuses offered by financial firms are making it even harder.

Once a place promising young people aspired to be, decades of decline, the rise of high-tech hot spots such as Silicon Valley and the rich compensation at big investment banks have knocked Detroit off the top of many of their lists.

"Our best and our brightest are going to Wall Street and consulting," said Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. "We can go to top universities overseas, and they want to work for us. If we went to Stanford, if we went to Caltech, if we went to Harvard or my alma mater, Princeton -- it's a much tougher sell."

 (go to article)

The Detroit News -- Ford Motor Co. posted a modest 1.8 percent sales increase in its main European markets last month, but saw total sales in the 51-country region fall by 3.3 percent.

Ford said it has lost three-tenths of a point of market share in its 19 largest European markets.

That is a contrast to the United States, where Ford consistently has gained market share over the past year, ending a decline that began in 2005.

Ford of Europe's head of sales and marketing, Ingvar Sviggum, attributed the decline to increased incentives by competitors. He said a small gain in the most critical markets offered some solace.

"It's great to see that there's still very strong demand for our latest products, and that our market share was pretty stable in February despite aggressive discounting by some...  (go to article)

Fish Information and Services (fis.com) -- A team of researchers at the National Technological University of Mar del Plata (UTN) is working on a research project to produce biodiesel from marine microalgae, with the aim of developing economically viable and environmentally sustainable processes.

The group already designed a low-cost production module of microalgae, from where it seeks to limit consumed energy to under 20 per cent of the energy produced.

The production of biodiesel from marine microalgae has very important advantages: It does not restrict human food consumption (of for example the soybean) and fresh water is not used, but rather sea water, which cools the equipment of a large factory near the location where the project is developed.

 (go to article)

Chicago Sun-Times -- The Illinois Senate voted Monday to undo a 23-year-old ban on the construction of new nuclear plants in a move one anti-nuclear activist predicted could turn Illinois into a “radioactive waste repository.”

Sen. Mike Jacobs (D-East Moline) said the legislation, which passed 40-1 and now moves to the House, is necessary to position the state for billions of federal dollars from President Obama’s administration for new nuclear plants and thousands of resulting construction jobs.

“The mood toward nuclear energy has cooled, and people aren’t as wary of it as they used to be,” said Jacobs, who has the Quad Cities nuclear plant in his district. “It’s proven itself to be a very safe clean technology.”
 (go to article)

Herlald Tribune -- Opening Florida's Gulf Coast to oil drilling would have almost no impact on prices at the pump or on the state's ongoing budget problems, a nonpartisan commission told a key committee of the Legislature on Monday.

While the House has heard similar arguments from environmental groups and others opposed to drilling, the report was significant because it came from the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, created by the Legislature five years ago to study Florida's long-term future on issues like water resources, growth management and energy.  (go to article)

Bloomberg Business Week -- March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil traded below $80 a barrel in New York on concern demand in the U.S., the world’s largest energy consumer, hasn’t grown fast enough to justify the recent gain in prices.

“The recovery story has been priced into commodities,” David Moore, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd., said in Sydney. “Some of the commodities, and oil is one, are getting up to high price levels relative to recent trading ranges and that has caused some investors to back off a bit.”

Crude oil for April delivery was at $79.70 a barrel, down 10 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 1:45 p.m. Singapore time. The contract lost 1.8 percent yesterday to $79.80, the lowest settlement since March 2.

The dollar was little changed agains  (go to article)

Physorg.com -- The growth of the electric vehicle sector has been hampered by the chicken-or-egg question of what should come first: zero-emission cars or the networks of recharging stations to keep them on the road.

Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors and Fuji Heavy Industries have linked up with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) as the organising members of the new grouping called "CHAdeMO".

The name is derived from a combination of the words "Charge" and "Move" and a pun on a popular Japanese phrase.

In total 158 companies and government bodies are members, including 20 foreign firms, among them Bosch, Peugeot SA and Enel SpA.

Standardizing charging infrastructure is vital to making electric vehicles popular, TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said.

"We need to make this protocol  (go to article)

Reuters -- SINGAPORE, March 16 - German luxury carmaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE) and its French rival Renault (RENA.PA) are in talks about taking equity stakes in each other to forge a long-term cooperation, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Citing two unidentified people briefed on the talks, the FT said the possible alliance would take the relationship beyond the ongoing talks about cooperation in the small cars business. It said the stakes would likely be below 10 percent in each other.  (go to article)

gas2.0 -- Over the past three years, the idea of using silicon in lithium-ion batteries to greatly increase energy storage capacity has been an on-again, off-again proposition. But some new announcements by different groups of researchers working on silicon-based lithium-ion batteries indicate that silicon may well be a viable charge-holding battery material.

If so, electric cars with a thousand miles of range are in striking distance.
Today’s lithium ion batteries use graphite anodes (in general terms, the anode is the part of the battery that holds the charge). Graphite is cheap and durable, meaning that batteries can be expected to last many thousands of charge cycles before breaking. But graphite is also not the best material for holding a charge — its relatively large size and structure mea  (go to article)

bloomberg.com -- Societe Generale SA, France’s second-largest bank, may as much as double financing this year for North American renewable power projects, supported by federal cash grants and loan guarantees.

Societe Generale, based in Paris, financed about $300 million of renewable projects last year, mostly wind power, Daniel Mallo, managing director of project and energy finance at SG Americas Securities LLC, said in a phone interview from New York today.

Mallo also said he expects more solar-energy clients in 2010 because the technology is more reliable and is available when demand is greatest.

 (go to article)

bloomberg.com -- The burgeoning U.S. wind-energy industry will fail to reach its potential without help from Congress in setting a national renewable-power standard and revamping the electric grid, governors from 29 states said.

A jumble of state laws should be replaced by a national edict, according to a report from the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which includes California, Florida and Massachusetts. The plan would help spur development and efficiency, which would create jobs, curb greenhouse-gas emissions and reduce dependency on oil imports, the coalition said.

The absence of such a standard is hurting the U.S., the governors said. China installed more wind-energy generators last year than any other country, doubling the nation’s windpower capacity, according to data released by the World  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, vying with BP Plc to be Europe’s largest oil and gas company, will outline a plan tomorrow to increase output every year until 2020, a person familiar with the company’s strategy said.

Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser, due to brief investors at an annual strategy update in London, will say Shell has a pipeline of more than 20 projects with the potential to sustain low single-digit average annual production growth in the second half of the decade, the person said, asking not to be identified because the presentation hasn’t yet been made.  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- A proposed cut in Rio de Janeiro’s share of Brazil’s oil royalties will leave the state unable to carry out infrastructure projects tied to the 2016 Olympics, the president of Rio’s organizing committee said in a statement.
 (go to article)

Washington Post -- Sure, homeowners can run a cord from an outlet to the environmentally friendly vehicle, but what if you don't have a garage? What if you live in an apartment and the landlord is not willing to pay larger electricity bills, as residents start clamoring for parking spaces near the power outlet?

Reddy's firm is hoping that landlords and office building owners will turn to the product as electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt come on the market and property owners try to figure out how people will pay for the extra power consumption.

"The notion that your landlord would install a socket so that you could get free juice is a fantasy," said Reddy, "This is not like charging a cellphone."  (go to article)

TOday's Energy Solutions -- Canada might hold much of the world’s oil supply, but that is not stopping its entrepreneurial companies from being world leaders in second-generation biofuel technologies. More than 100 companies are in the race to prove their technology can replace fossil fuels with affordable and planet-friendly biofuels to heat homes and schools, and rev up industrial and transportation engines.

Despite decades of work, the majority of the next generation biofuels – which are made from materials that do not compete with food production – are still in the R&D stage. But, a few Canadian companies are among the dozen that are commercial or near commercial, and each has the potential to change the way the world fuels up.  (go to article)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/ -- Lower sales of North American-built passenger cars were offset by higher sales of trucks and overseas-built passenger cars as the number of new motor vehicles sold remained unchanged at 128,426 in January.  (go to article)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/ -- The companies proposing to build the $16.2-billion Mackenzie Gas pipeline again delayed its proposed startup date on Monday.  (go to article)

Reuters -- European carbon emissions futures rose above 13 euros on Monday, as German power and UK gas prices rallied, while the market shrugged off a decline in U.S. industrial output, traders said.

EU Allowances for December delivery were up 15 cents or 1.16 percent at 13.05 euros ($17.94) a tonne at 1605 GMT, having dipped to an intra-day low of 12.87 euros. Volume was at 4,023 lots.

Spot EUAs on France's BlueNext were up 17 cents or 1.34 percent at 12.90 euros a tonne.

"Crude is weaker and equity markets were lower but German power and UK gas seem to be strengthening," an emissions trader said.  (go to article)

Reuters -- Toyota Motor Corp said on Monday it had found no evidence to support the driver's version of a widely publicized "runaway" Prius episode a week ago, suggesting that authorities examine whether the incident happened as reported to police.

Toyota representatives convened a news conference in San Diego, near the site of the March 8 report of the "runaway" vehicle, to announce preliminary findings of its examination of the 2008 Prius driven by James Sikes.

U.S. safety investigators said earlier on Monday that they had found no evidence to support or disprove Sikes' version of events.

Sikes, 61, had reported in a call to 911-emergency operators that his Prius sped out of control for some 20 minutes before he could bring the vehicle under control with the assistance of the CHP.  (go to article)

CNN -- Exxon Mobil outlined plans Thursday that rely heavily on oil from tough to reach places, extracting it from the depths of the ocean, the frozen Arctic and the tar sands in Canada's frozen tundra.

Read the article  (go to article)

JuneauEmpire.com -- Democrats wary of bill that would structurally change state's system

By Tim Bradner | Alaska Journal of Commerce

An effort to make a structural change in the state's oil and gas production tax law is gathering momentum in the state Senate and could become a pivotal issue as the 2010 legislative session enters its final weeks.

Democrats in the state House don't like the bill.

Senate Bill 305 is designed as a platform to make more significant changes, such as lowering the tax rate, once the Senate sends the bill to the House, lawmakers said.

In a signal that the Senate intends to fast-track the measure, Senate President Gary Stevens gave SB 305 a referral to only one committee, the Finance Committee, waiving the usual procedure of sending major bills to at least two committees. Ordinari  (go to article)

CNNMoney -- Oil fell on Monday, as uncertainty over the debt crisis was renewed and the dollar strengthened against major currencies.

What prices are doing: Crude plummeted $1.75 to $79.49 a barrel on Monday.

What's driving the market: Prices took a nosedive, as traders kept a wary eye on global sovereign debt issues, after a report showed renewed worries over some countries' ability to sustain a recovery.

 (go to article)

Piladelphia Inquirer -- Phila.-area gas prices creeping up

INQUIRER STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS

The average for a gallon of regular no-lead was up 1 cent over the weekend in the five-county Philadelphia area, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic.

The average there was $2.82. South Jersey's average was unchanged, at $2.62, after slipping up - and then down - 1 cent during the weekend.

The national average was up by 1 cent, to $2.79.

Diesel averages were up 2 cents, to $3.15, in the Philadelphia area; unchanged, at $2.82, in South Jersey; and unchanged, at $2.92, at the national level.

Prices at the pump have been increasing for weeks - up 6 cents in the Philly area, 13 cents in South Jersey and 17 cents in the nation overall.

As AAA noted, prices go up at this time every year, what the auto club refer  (go to article)

The Associated Press -- NEW YORK — Oil prices tumbled to near $79 a barrel Monday, dragged down by a stronger dollar and increasing investor concerns about energy demand.

Energy prices fell across the board, with benchmark crude contracts for April delivery sliding $1.65 to $79.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, crude dipped as low as $79.16. It's been nearly two weeks since prices dropped below $80.

MF Global analyst Mike Fitzpatrick said, "A great deal of skepticism is creeping into the market about the sustainability of a market recovery," which has fueled concerns that consumers will keep their cars parked and watch their energy use closely.  (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- For those who are looking to purchase a used car anytime in the future, one thing always comes to mind- vehicle history reports. While these reports may provide you with a sense of security, they don't always reveal everything in a vehicle's past history.

We've been taught to ask for a vehicle history report, even pay upwards of $40 to find out where a car has been, if its a lemon, if its been wrecked, etc. But there's no substitute from having a neutral mechanic check it over. The last thing you want to find out is that the used car you just purchased has been in a massive wreck, leaving the question of structural integrity in the air.

I have a new avenue for folks who are sick of paying big bucks for little in additional...  (go to article)