Gasoline prices dive at some Q-C area stations

<a href=www.qctimes.com>Source Last Updated: 10:14 pm, Thursday, March 27th, 2003 By Thomas Geyer .  Gasoline prices at many Quad-City area stations fell by as much as a dime per gallon Wednesday and Thursday as wholesale prices plummeted. . A number of stations in the Iowa Quad-Cities were selling regular unleaded at between $1.43 and $1.47 a gallon Thursday, a day after at least one Moline station dropped its price to $1.50, a level last seen in the area during January. . Analysts say the primary reason prices at the pump have plummeted is because crude oil, the largest cost component of gasoline, has fallen after reaching more than $37 a barrel March 12 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, or Nymex. . “The Midwest is faring a lot better than the national average right now,” said Doug MacIntyre, an oil analyst with the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy. . But he warned consumers energy prices are volatile in the short run and that things could change. . While the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, has promised to make up any shortfall of Iraqi oil during the war, it was expected that Iraq would be able to export some oil in the Oil for Food Program. But that has been put on hold. . And civil strife in Nigeria has caused the African country’s production and exports to drop. . “Normally, Nigeria produces about 2.2 million barrels a day,” MacIntyre said. “Currently, we have them down to about 1.4 million a day.” . In 2002, he added, Nigeria exported 1.85 million barrels a day worldwide, making that country the seventh-largest oil exporter in the world, according to the DOE. Last year, Nigerian crude accounted for about 6 percent of U.S. oil imports, or about 600,000 barrels a day. . But there is some good news, he said. . During the week ending March 21, the United States received normal imports from Venezuela, the first time that has happened since the week of Dec. 6, and it appears production is back up to 3 million barrels a day there. . Production at the South American country’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, the parent company of Citgo, was crippled after a nationwide strike. . Before the strike, Venezuela provided about 15 percent of U.S. crude imports. . “It’s an encouraging sign,” MacIntyre said. “But one week does not make a trend, so we’d like to see a few more weeks before we pronounce them back to normal.” . Still, said Greg Bereskin, an economist at St. Ambrose University, Davenport, and president of the National Transportation Research Forum, oil had nowhere to go but down since it reached a price no one wanted to pay. . “That’s why our stocks were so low,” he said. “Nobody was buying it.” . Venezuela, he added, was a large reason why crude prices were so high. . As for the war, the Arab members of OPEC are willing to make up the difference for Iraq, not just because they fear Saddam Hussein, but because they have a chance to make money, he said. . “Publicly, they pay lip service to Saddam,” he said. “But all of them in one way or another are either supporting, or at least not fighting, the war effort in Iraq. And simply by not going against it is tacit support. Underneath it all, the rulers in all those countries are probably just as scared of Saddam as anyone in this country is.” . And while those rulers might be scared of democracy as well, the oil producers are businessmen, he added. . “They’re profit maximizers,” he said. “Even though the price has come down, they have an incentive to keep producing because they’re picking up the profit. OPEC is profiting off of Saddam’s loss.” . Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.