Pumping $2 gas again

Hold this memory while you can: gas for less than $2 a gallon.

It was that cheap for a little over two months in the Triangle, between Nov. 21 and March 27.

Today it has risen to $2.038. Will we ever see it below $2 again?

$2 gas was an unheard-of horror back in March 2005, when we first hit the mark. Local gas stations were unprepared for this milestone bummer, and some of them were short on "2" numerals needed for the big signs that advertise prices. (They used upside-down 5's.)

A 15-gallon tankful today costs $30.57, about half what we paid for a fill-up last September ($60.87) when the local average pump price peaked at $4.058, an all-time record.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration tried yesterday to explain the recent price spurt:

After lingering for weeks in the $1.90 range, pump prices rose above $2 in the past week because (1) a stock-market spurt prompted a quick little speculative increase in crude oil prices, (2) the low pump prices had produced a little boost in demand for gas, even amid the general economic gloom, (3) gas refiners recently cut their output a tad, to reduce the surplus supply, and (4) they recently increased their profit margins on each gallon, which had dropped to record-slim levels back in mid-winter when pump prices were bottoming out at $1.52 a gallon. Got that?

But nobody is predicting $3 gas again this summer, and there's still a chance we could dip below $2 again.

After all, we're still in a recession. We're driving less because fewer of us have jobs to drive to. The petroleum surplus is still huge -- U.S. crude oil stocks haven't been this big since 1993. After the EIA report was released yesterday, light sweet crude fell by more than $1 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, to $48.35 a barrel.

One other change since March 2005: Nowadays, a lot of the stations around town post their prices on electronic LED signs. No more upside-down 5's.