In Nevada, where the sun don’t ask permission to fry a man like a flapjack, the price of gasoline has taken a polite little tumble. A gallon of regular now fetches $3.87, which is four cents less than it did just last week–about enough to make a feller smile before he remembers he still can’t afford pie after dinner.
It is an improvement from last year when you couldn’t fill your motorcar without feeling like you’d got waylaid by highwaymen. Back then, it was $4.60 a gallon, and people considered takin’ up hitchhikin’ as a profession.
John Treanor, a spokesman for the AAA–an outfit that knows more about car trouble than Job knew about misery–reckons folks are stirring out of their winter dens now that the weather is fairer.
“More people gettin’ out and about is nudgin’ the prices upward,” he said, squinting into the middle distance like a man who’s seen too much.
He also allowed that the price of crude oil is loafing at a lowly $62 a barrel, compared to a loftier $82 this time last year.
Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration–that wellspring of figures nobody understands–reports that gasoline demand has hopped from 8.46 million barrels to a lively 9.41 million a day. Being a fickle mistress, supply dropped from 234.0 million barrels to 229.5 million. Nevertheless, gasoline production puffed along respectably at 10.1 million barrels a day, like a steamboat captain who’s a little behind schedule but determined to make up for it with bluster.
In Las Vegas–where fortunes rise and fall quicker than a drunkard’s promises–gas averages $3.87. Up yonder in Reno, where the air’s clear and the poker faces sterner, it’ll set you back $4.16. In the rest of the Union, the going price is $3.17, creeping upward by a hair’s breadth but still a ways south of last year’s gouging.
On the oil front, West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices slipped down $1.40 to rest at $62.27 a barrel–a mighty tumble from the highfalutin’ prices of yesteryear. U.S. crude inventories are nudging upward like a man who’s had too many chili beans they’re still a good five percent shy of where they ought to be.
As for the electric contraptions–those motorcars that run on lightning and wizardry–the price for charging has held steady. Thirty-four cents per kilowatt hour nationally and thirty-seven cents in Nevada. If nothing else, it’s good to know one part of modern life that ain’t swimmin’ around like a cat in a rain barrel.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
Leave a comment