graph of gas price increase

A:You can believe all the conspiracy theories, or you can believe the real economic reasons. ----- Gas prices always fall after the summer driving season is over (demand decreases). They always rise for the winter (oil supplies are use to produce heating oil as opposed to gas). The large increase/decrease this year was caused by two abnormal events. FIRST: Last summer two hurricanes (Rita & Katrina) swept through the Gulf of Mexico. A large amount of supplies were knocked offline due to all the damage of offshore drilling rigs. Oil infrastructure was also damaged on land in South Louisiana. >>This led to immediate price increases. Due to the damage done supplies were being built up since the hurricanes of 2005. Everyone (environmentalist, National Hurricane Center) predicted another year of increased hurricane activity with major storms. This caused 2 things: >Increased supply build-up for expected shortages >Spectulators increasing the price of oil futures in anticipation of hurricane damage and shortages What happened? >Not one major hurricane in the Gulf and zero damage to oil infrastructure. The rusult? >A ton of supplies had been built up that hit the market and lowered priced. >Speculators stopped bidding up the price of oil because no hurricanes caused damage like last year. SECOND: BP announced (beginning of August) that they found damage to pipelines and that Prudhoe Bay production would have to be temporarily shut down (decrease in supple causes increase in price) Dire consequences were predicted. (not by BP, but by economic forecasters and media) This caused speculators to bid up oil futures(prices). What happened? >Some of the oil was rerouted and only half of production was stopped. >Repairs did not take as long as anticipated and enough oil was rerouted so that full production has been completely restored The Result? >Speculators had no reason to speculate and oil futures dropped. >Supplies disruptions were minimal. ----- The link is a graph to oil per barrel prices, not gas prices. http://www.wtrg.com/daily/crudeoilprice.html .