THE VAN DER VALK GAS PRICE ADVISORY FOR 3-23-09 – Aretha Franklin’s signature song is being revived by the banking industry and US Government to convince the skeptical American taxpayers to throw more of their good money after bad investments made by the Wall Street banks. Other bad news will follow as crude oil will follow suit and increase in response to this program, which is the government’s latest attempt to keep the financial industry afloat. Crude oil for May delivery raised towards the $53 a barrel mark this morning, the highest in almost four months. Continue Reading

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Wednesday he will speak to OPEC ministers before their meeting this weekend and warn them as they consider another oil production cut that high crude oil prices will harm the fragile world economy. That is the same “pity line” used on OPEC by the Bush administration last year when crude oil prices spiked up to $147 a barrel in order to get them to increase oil production thereby lowering oil prices. Continue Reading

Hope springs eternal for motorists with West Coast spot market pipeline diesel and gasoline prices down 3 cents per gallon this morning. But this is just an adjustment of the big upward momentum in prices of the last two days for these two products with diesel up 7 cents and gasoline up 16 cents per gallon.
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