Gasoline Prices and the Price of Oil

On occasion, I’ve provided a graph based on information from this source, which is entitled WHAT WE PAY FOR IN A GALLON OF REGULAR GASOLINE. All data used in our graph is expressed in real terms using CPI (based to equal unity as of 2006QI) as the deflator. In September, the price of a gallon of gasoline was $2.69, which is nowhere close to a record.

Of that, the contribution from oil was $1.73 which does appear to be the highest we have observed during the eight year period that the Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides their gasoline pump. The good news is that the refinery (gross) margin was only $0.34, the distribution margin was only $0.23, and the tax bite was only $0.38 per gallon. Now you may ask – what about those high gasoline prices during October? It seems we’ll have to wait for EIA to publish its next gasoline pump to see what the components were.