You wake up one morning, on your way to work, and you see you have a quarter of a tank of gas left. You decide to go fill up at your local gas station. When you arrive, you see the price is $4.30 per gallon. Your mind is blown. You’re mad, you’re upset, but you still decide to get gas, because you need it to get from point A to point B. You never would’ve thought it would come to this, but it did.
The national average gas price in America is about $4.33 a gallon – this is an all time high surpassing the $4.13 per gallon in 2008. European countries are also dealing with the increasing prices at the pump. As a matter of fact Europe is having even more problems at the pump than the US. Some countries have hit 1.75 euros a liter, equivalent to about $7.21 a gallon in the US.
WHY?
One major cause is the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia decided to invade Ukraine. It is very shocking that in this day and age, world leaders are still trying to conquer land to make it their own.
The US and the European Union have put sanctions on Russia. This critically impacted Russia’s ability to sell its crude oil. They are one of the biggest countries and one of the biggest energy suppliers to the world. This is bad because they can regulate gas prices around the globe. Not every country gets direct supply of gas from Russia, but if countries such as Germany, who is the biggest consumer of Russian gas, decide to cut off Russia completely, they will have to find a replacement country that will fuel them. This could also impact pricing.
Russia, as of recently, has threatened to cut the major gas line into Germany if the US and other European countries do ban Russian imports on oil. If the US and other countries ban imports from Russia, their economy will plummet. Russia is at war right now, so their economy isn’t doing too well currently, but if a major supply of energy to the world (Russia) was cut off, they are not going to be happy.
Big businesses are scared they will be losing money if we do close off Russia from their import of oil. So, companies raise prices. America doesn’t even get that much oil from Russia, nor have we officially stopped their importation. But companies want their money.
Also, the inflation rate in America doesn’t help matters. The inflation rate rose to 7.9% in February.
PEAK? END?
Gas prices are expected to peak in May of this year. The average price will stay above $4 per gallon but should eventually drop. The predicted national average for the year will be $3.99. Americans hope these predictions come true as their wallets continue to feel the burden of the soaring gas prices.