Why high prices? noticed everything keep going up?

Are you suggesting oil companies should further increase the supply of gasoline during the holidays? I am trying to think of an efficient way to do that, and not sure if it is possible. They would either have to slightly increase production throughout the year, which would require an increase in storge capacity. Or, they would have to sharply spike production around the holidays, which would require an increase in temporary employment, plus leasing, and many other production and refining costs. Both options lead to an increase in overhead, which leads to an increase in price. It is more likely that simply the increase in demand is what causes gas prices to go up around the holidays than oil companies taking advantage of the holidays.

Every large production business accounts for both low and peak demand in their yearly production schedule so meeting the demand for their product during the holidays should not trigger an automatic increase in the price at that time. Using your logic, the price of gasoline would increase during the entire winter, instead of just spiking during the holidays, as the demand for heating oil increases during this time and heating oil is another product the oil companies produce. Then again, using your logic, the price would spike during the entire summer as more folks are traveling for vacations. It doesn't because the oil companies already have the storage capacity they need to meet the yearly fluctuations in demand and have production and maintenance schedules that take this into account. Since it takes more than five minutes to go from crude to gasoline and heating oil, the oil companies are subject to additional operating costs long before the holidays yet that is when consumers normally see a spike in the price. Here's an example I'm intimately familiar with...sugar. Right now it's the harvest season for sugar cane here in Florida. The major sugar producers, here and elsewhere, use rental equipment in addition to the equipment they own so that's an increased expense. They have hired additional personnel for the harvest and both the temporary and permanent workers are working long hours and paid overtime. The mills and refineries that sit idle during part of the year have been fired up so there is also the additional cost of that operation, ie. utility costs & personnel and added staff hours. They also have transportation contracts in order to move the cane and refined sugar which include the trucking and railroad industry. Sugar refineries have storage facilities that meet their peak production needs. Consumers do not see the price of sugar spike for five months to compensate for this, nor does the price drop when the harvest and production ends.

one of my ratives just told me that.

god! lots of typos. relatives not realives or some other crazy word i posted