<a href=www.billingsgazette.com>The Washington Post

The rebound in crude oil prices last week, triggered by Iraq's resistance to U.S.-led forces, has slowed the flow of oil imports to U.S. refineries and the production of gasoline, leaving motor fuel stockpiles at historically low levels as the summer driving season approaches, energy analysts warn.

The war's uncertain course and the accompanying gyrations in oil prices are making U.S. energy companies wary about rebuilding depleted fuel inventories with high-priced crude. The companies also worry that a sudden favorable turn in the war could caused oil prices to plummet.

"If we ever get past this crisis, crude prices will drop like a rock," said Mary Rose Brown, vice president and spokesman of Valero Energy Corp. in San Antonio, Texas, one of the largest U.S. refiners. "Does it make you more cautious? Yes. Any barrel you buy today that would have been be cheaper next month - that would be a stupid move."

The caution is widespread among refiners, too. In the week ending March 21, U.S. refineries produced less gasoline and other products than the week before, even though oil is available.

But if gasoline inventories aren't in better shape when gasoline demand picks up on Memorial Day, pump prices could stay high through next fall, the Energy Information Administration warned last week.

A big increase in crude imports is needed to refill gasoline stockpiles, the EIA said. "However, the evidence so far suggests that either this is not happening, of that if so, the pace is barely perceptible," it warned.

Gasoline inventories in the United States have been falling since early this year, following a strike in December that closed down Venezuela's oil fields, a crucial source of both oil and gasoline imports. As of mid-March, U.S. gasoline inventories were 6 percent below levels a year ago and pump prices have risen as inventories shrunk.

Motorists got a bit of relief after oil prices plunged in energy markets' optimistic reaction to the onset of the Iraq war on March 20. The cash or spot prices of a benchmark U.S. crude brand, West Texas Intermediate, stood at $37.87 a barrel on March 12, but by the war's second day, had plunged to $27.18, EIA said. Gasoline prices followed with a small downward move, with the national average price for regular brands dropping from $1.72 in mid-March to $1.69 at the end of last week.

But the end of last week, crude oil prices had climbed over $30 a barrel on U.S. markets, and gasoline prices will follow that move, too.

With an uncertain war timetable, U.S. refiners cannot reliably predict when oil prices and gasoline prices might drop. That makes them unwilling to risk increasing their import purchases on a large scale, even though there is plenty of oil around, said Jeff Goetz, director of Poten & Partners, a New York-based marine consulting group that tracks oil tanker shipments. "There's enough oil."

The Iraq war did not cause an immediate oil shortage, even though the conflict cut off nearly 2 million barrels of daily crude oil supplies, or about 3 percent of the world's needs.

In February, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers increased oil production to counter a sharp increase in crude prices caused following the Venezuelan strike. Now that additional oil, equal to 1.5 million barrels of daily supply, is arriving at refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, completing a 45-day voyage from the Persian Gulf.

But refiners aren't snapping up all the cargoes, industry analysts and officials said. Many refiners apparently are buying enough to serve motorists' current needs but not enough to rebuild stocks. "They are looking to buy the oil when they need it," Goetz said. "When they are uncertain about the future, they hold back."

A refiner that bought a supertanker's cargo of 2 million barrels of oil at $30 a barrel could lose millions if gasoline prices fall before that tanker cargo can be refined into gasoline and the fuel is distributed for sale to service stations. "The risk of oil prices going from $40 to $25 (a barrel) are much higher than going to $60," he said.

<a href=www.dailytrojan.com>War may affect U.S. gasoline prices Abran Rubiner | Daily Trojan By ALLISON RUECKER Contributing Writer

As the war continues, the ever-changing oil prices have caught the attention of both traders and American consumers.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that the price of oil has increased 7 percent to $28.93 per barrel after hopes faded for a quick end to the war in Iraq. This was the largest one-day percentage rise since December 2001.

On Thursday, however, the Chicago Tribune reported that the oil prices rebounded and posted the first gain in eight trading sessions and the greatest daily advance in 15 months.

These recent fluctuations have been linked to Iraqi sabotages of oil wells.

The price of oil is dictated by supply and demand, not because of a shortage of it, said Iraj Ershaghi, professor of petroleum engineering.

"Consumption is definitely not going down," he said. "The United States alone uses 16 (million) to 17 million barrels of oil a day."

In 1979, a barrel of oil cost suppliers $30, but because of fear, the prices began to climb, Ershaghi said. This shows that besides the supply and demand concept, the phenomenon of oil prices is greatly affected by perception, he added.

The national average for regular gas remains at $1.71 per gallon. Gas prices will remain the same until buyers purchase crude oil at a lower wholesale price, Ershaghi said.

What people often do not understand is that once the price of oil is lowered, they may not see a change in gas prices for at least a couple of weeks, he said.

For every dollar that a barrel of oil's price is increased, the price of gasoline increases by a reported 2 cents a gallon.

Although the gas prices have skyrocketed in the recent months, some students believe that they should put this issue in perspective.

"The gas prices are very high, but in comparison to other countries, it's not that bad," said Aimee Nadeau, a senior majoring in music industry. "In Europe, it can be $6 or $7 a gallon, but I think that it more directly affects us because our public transportation is so limited."

California's gasoline prices have surpassed the $2 per gallon mark. Because of air pollution standards that must be met and taxes, California has the highest gasoline price of the 50 states, Ershaghi said.

Although the Middle East supplies 40 percent of the world's oil and is a major U.S. oil supplier, the United States has continually been depending on sources elsewhere.

The oil market instability can also be traced to the recent civil unrest in Nigeria and the oil industry strike in Venezuela.

Many students believe that the high gasoline prices come as a result of the war with Iraq.

"I think there's an indirect correlation between the war and the prices," said Benjamin Skidmore, a senior majoring in business administration. "I think that once we end the war with Iraq, the prices will fall."

<a href=www.newsday.com>By Randi F. Marshall Staff Writer March 31, 2003

When Margaret Gallagher pulls up to a Sunoco station in Huntington village, she's not thinking about the expansive oil fields of Venezuela or the Middle East -- or the huge transportation network that carries her gasoline up the Hudson River and eventually into the tank of her Chevrolet Suburban.

Instead, Gallagher, a 41-year-old mother of two from Commack, is thinking about just one thing: the price.

"It's painful," said Gallagher, as she spent $10 to fill up a small portion of her 42-gallon gas tank, at $1.85 per gallon. "I do $10 or $20 at a time, because I can't afford to fill it up."

Like Gallagher, most New Yorkers have become keenly aware of the recent spikes in oil prices, but few are aware of the behind-the-scenes world of the metropolitan region's huge oil industry that works to quench their daily thirst for oil. It comprises an extensive web of Long Island and New York City companies that run the barges, ports, pipelines and distribution outlets.

All told, oil is an $8-billion industry regionwide, according to some estimates, with as many as 45,000 employees directly or indirectly associated with it.

"It's a very sizable industry that has a very low profile from a business standpoint," said Kevin Rooney, Oil Heat Institute of Long Island chief executive.

It's also an industry recently hit with what one expert called a "perfect energy storm" -- the confluence of a cold Northeastwinter, a strike in Venezuela, a heating oil spill into Long Island Sound, a dramatic barge explosion on Staten Island and, finally, the war with Iraq.

The impact of that storm pushed prices up by as much as $10 for a barrel of crude oil, resulting in gas prices that approach $2 a gallon in some locations. The price of a barrel of crude oil closed at $30.16 on Friday.

The average U.S. family spends $1,300 a year on energy costs, but experts say that number is even larger on Long Island, where taxes are higher, people drive more and 70 percent of them use heating oil.

But gasoline and heating oil retailers say that while they understand consumers' sticker shock, they are not benefiting from the increases.

"Financially, it's becoming a tremendous hardship. ... My dealers are in jeopardy," says Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops.

"We should be making more, and we're not," said Kevin Beyer, who owns three gas stations in Port Jefferson, Huntington and Smithtown and says his profit margins have shrunk.

The difference between average wholesale and retail gasoline prices this year now hovers near 60 cents, while last year it stood at 53 cents, -- seemingly leaving retailers with a greater profit.

But Beyer, a Huntington resident, can tick off his increased costs from memory, saying the wholesale price doesn't include any of them.

Customers now buy less gas at a lower grade for a cheaper price, and more of them use credit cards. Beyer said he typically makes 10 cents on the gallon. But when a credit card is used on a $2 per gallon purchase, fees eat about 6 cents of that profit. After taxes, rent, and employee salaries and health insurance, very little is left, Beyer said.

"Truthfully, they [the prices] should be a lot higher," Beyer said. "We just raised the price. I hate doing it, but I own a house and I have a mortgage like everybody else. I have kids in school and I have expenses, too."

But some consumer advocates doubt the claims of low profits and high costs. Now, wholesale prices are on a fairly rapid decline, but retail prices are not, according to Joe Roy, the Long Island coordinator for New York Public Interest Research Group's Fuel Buyers Group. "If dealers felt squeezed in any way before, they can make up for it slightly now," he said.

Beyond gasoline and heating, oil plays a pervasive role in almost every aspect of the regional economy, from airlines to manufacturing, paved roads to shoe soles, plastics to carpeting. Its importance also has made security a greater concern to terminal operators, oil executives and barge captains, as everyone worries about potential terrorism.

The vulnerability of the region's distribution system garnered wide attention last month, after a barge exploded at a loading dock on Staten Island, killing two workers. The barge, owned by Hicksville-based Bouchard Transportation Co., was unloading 4 million gallons of gasoline into a storage facility maintained by Exxon Mobil Corp. The case remains under investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Just a week before that, a Hornbeck Offshore Transportation barge leaked 2,500 gallons of heating oil into Long Island Sound after striking bottom.

These events not only highlighted the intricate network of oil distribution in the region, but raised questions about its impact on the environment.

Such accidents actually have become relatively rare since the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Among other things, the act enforced the use of double-hulled barges, phasing out barges with only one hull, and making a hole in the hull less likely to turn into a spill. According to the Coast Guard, which handles oil-spill prevention and response, the number of spills reported in the Activities New York port, which includes Queens and part of Long Island, was cut in half from 1992 and 2002.

"The regulations came out, and I think industry responded," said Lt. Rebecca Ore, with the Coast Guard's environmental protection branch.

Whether the oil industry was a willing participant or not is up for debate. "They've been dragged into it kicking and screaming," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service.

And advocates are quick to point out that some companies are more reputable than others. The American Waterways Organization has 375 members who follow "responsible carrier" guidelines. But spokeswoman Anne Davis Burns said roughly 30 percent of the nation's cargo is carried by non members, who may not follow those rules.

"Certainly there are always companies that don't make the commitment that AWO members have made to safety," Burns said. "I think there are a lot of little guys in this business."

Foreign vessels, in particular, may be more likely to spill oil, and less likely to obey U.S. regulations, according to Alan McKim, president of Clean Harbors Inc., an oil-spill clean-up firm in Braintree, Mass.

While Bouchard is considered a relatively good player in the industry, an incident like the explosion at Port Mobil left members of the Coast Guard, which inspects all barges and terminals, in shock. "Nobody had seen anything like this ever," said Lt. j.g. William Grossman, chief of port safety and security.

And experts note that the industry still has a way to go before it fully cleans up its act.

"I think there are things that are going to take time before they are fully implemented," said McKim, referring to double-hulled barges and on-shore storage spill protection.

The complex, high-tech process that brings oil from the fields to the furnace begins with exploration and drilling, in fields from Texas and Alaska to Iraq and Nigeria. The United States relies on imports for 55 percent of its oil, mostly from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Some large-scale oil companies, such as ConocoPhillips, ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, are involved in every step, while in some cases, it is more fragmented.

That crude oil is brought out of the wells, and taken to terminals, where it is sent by tanker or pipeline to refineries across the globe.

There, the huge tanks and eerie lights that rise up near the New Jersey Turnpike in Linden, N.J., and those that spread across acres of land in the South and West, make up refineries that convert crude oil into products including gasoline, heating oil and asphalt.

Pipelines and large barges then travel the nation's rivers to bring heating oil, gasoline and other products to storage terminals, including those in New Jersey. Smaller barges then bring the oil up the Hudson River to terminals peppered throughout New York State, including several in the city and on Long Island. The terminals may handle oil from multiple companies, or from a single giant. Port Mobil on Staten Island, for instance, sees 700 barges a year, Exxon Mobil Corp. spokesman Barry Wood said.

"We are an invisible industry unless you live on the river or something," American Waterways Organization spokeswoman Burns said.

Take Staten Island's K-Sea Transportation Corp. With 31 barges, 17 tugs and three small tankers, the company moves roughly 86 million barrels of oil a year in the Northeast, but its resources, too, have been stretched by the busy winter.

"No one thinks about the millions and millions of gallons [of oil] transported without a problem," K-Sea president Tim Casey said, noting his company's efforts to shift from single-hulled barges to safer, double-hulled ones.

Indeed, Long Island has far more oil moving on its roads, in its waters and even through pipelines than most residents would suspect, according to the Oil Heat Institute's Rooney. Some oil heads through an underground pipeline from New Jersey to Inwood on the South Shore. Another pipeline brings heating oil from a water terminal at Port Jefferson to Setauket, and then to Holtsville, the Island's largest terminal, which handles a quarter of the area's petroleum. A pipeline also connects Holtsville to Plainview. Barges stop at water terminals in Oceanside, Glenwood Landing, Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor.

About 12 terminals are spread across the five boroughs, in particular Queens and Brooklyn.

"You can't speak about Long Island in a vacuum," said Getty Realty Corp. chief executive Leo Liebowitz, who previously also owned Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc. "It's metropolitan New York, and New York Harbor is the center, really, of the East Coast marketing and distribution system."

That extensive network eventually ends when large trucks from companies such as Astoria-based Mystic Transportation Inc. take barrels of gasoline, heating oil or other products to individual gasoline stations or heating oil companies, which then transport it to their consumers. According to Mystic marketing vice president Jack McNamara, that piece of the pipeline was strained by recent events, too. "We had long lines, excessive delays [at the terminals and in traffic]," McNamara said, "and then productivity slows down and it costs more money."

The whole process can take anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on where the oil starts from and the path it follows.And recent events abroad and harsh weather in the Northeast have slowed the supply chain, while also increasing demand for oil.

"When you've got a system that runs so efficiently and continuously, one little glitch can make a significant problem," said ExxonMobil's Wood. "It's very capital-intensive, as opposed to labor-intensive, and technology is critical to the business bottom line."

All parties involved in the process have had to work harder to keep the path in place this winter. "We've all about had it," said John Maniscalco, executive vice president with the New York Oil Heating Association in Manhattan. "And you never make it back. Whatever you lose, you lose."

Allison Heaney has watched the cost of the oil in her company's barges, double this year, to $200,000 for a 160,000-gallon barge. Heaney's College Point oil heating company, Skaggs-Walsh, hasn't passed every increase on to its 10,000 consumers, given the competition among both oil and gas players. So, profits are down 10 percent to 15 percent, according to the Locust Valley mother of two.

Heaney and her 85 employees worked long hours to make the process run smoothly through the rough patch, and she's had to pay out lots of overtime. "My credit-card bills are low because I'm never able to go out for dinner," she said. The ripple effect that stretches from Casey to McNamara to Beyer and Heaney to Gallagher takes its toll on the regional economy, as consumers have less money to spend elsewhere. A $10 increase in a barrel of oil's price can shave up to 2 percentage points off annualized gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic growth, Georgia State University economic forecaster Rajeev Dhawan said.

Gasoline in the United States remains relatively inexpensive, thanks to lower taxes. Tom Peters, executive vice president with the Empire State Petroleum Association, points to how much more a gallon of milk costs, arguing that far less is involved to get the milk to store shelves.

And the oil industry also faces the constant conflict of increasing consumer demands and environmental constraints.

"We want to drive SUVs, we want air-conditioning, we want heating and we want lots of lights," said Charles Moore, vice president of petroleum business for Cambridge, Mass.-based Aspen Technology Inc., a software and consulting company. "But we don't want oil drilling, we don't want refineries and we don't want pipelines going across the country."

In the end, consumers still feel the impact. SUV driver Gallagher said her family is buying fewer luxuries. She and her husband, Kevin, and their two children are also forgoing the day trips to Sag Harbor or Orient Point they once enjoyed.

"As much as I don't like paying the gas prices, I'd rather have the safety [of a larger vehicle] than the economy [of a smaller one]," said Kevin Gallagher, 42. "But the prices limit you. It's out of hand."

Still, the Gallaghers may end up feeding the oil industry gullet even more, with the potential purchase of a third family car -- this time, for their 16-year-old daughter, Alicia. She's hoping for a yellow Mustang, using the higher gas prices to persuade her parents to buy one.

<a href=www.zwire.com>By: John Martin, Staff Writer March 30, 2003

Joyce Simmons of Greenwood pumps gas into her car Saturday at a Greenwood Double Quick on the U.S. 82-49 bypass. She said the $1.56 a gallon she paid was still too much.Weeklong respite from climbing prices coming to end Don't let the lower prices at the pump fool you.

After a weeklong respite from climbing gasoline rates, American motorists should expect the cost of filling their cars to jump again as uncertainties in the war against Iraq continue to emerge, industry officials say.

Greenwood drivers saw gas prices dip below the state average of $1.60 a gallon for regular unleaded Friday. Before fighting began in Iraq, local rates were pushing $1.65 or more.

That decline corresponded with international oil prices, which as U.S. and British forces flexed their muscle at the war's outset dropped on March 21 to a three-month low of $26.91 a barrel.

Joyce Simmons, a Milwaukee Electric Tool Co. employee from Greenwood, was filling up her car at a Double Quick for $1.56 a gallon Saturday. That still isn't low enough, she said.

"Let them go all the way down, and we'll appreciate it," she said.

Simmons said she doesn't trust the prices to keep going down as long as war continues. She might be right.

Since oil prices closed so low two weeks ago, the war situation and the market's response have changed, says Tom Gresham, spokesman for Double Quick and Gresham Petroleum in Indianola.

"I think the oil traders initially felt the war was going to be quick, and prices started coming back down," Gresham said. "But as it looks like this is going to be a prolonged engagement, we should start seeing prices head back up."

That reaction from oil prices has already begun. They jumped again this week, closing Friday at just over $30 a barrel, the biggest one-week leap in almost a year.

Gresham said this trend has nothing to do with burning oil wells in southern Iraq. Only two of the seven wells that were set on fire in the now-secured Rumailah oil field are still burning. In the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi forces damaged or destroyed more than 700.

But after that experience, speculators are hyper-sensitive to images of flames spouting hundreds of feet above oil fields, says Don Redmond, a spokesman for the American Automobile Association's regional headquarters in New Orleans.

"We're in a tense situation," he said. "Shortly after the onset of war, oil prices on the open market dropped down in some cases by almost $10 a barrel. Once reports came in that oil wells were on fire in the south, they went back up. Then when we found out there were only three burning, it went back down. Then, it went up again."

While oil prices are cowed by constantly evolving news reports from the war, the well fires could have a longer lasting impact. Industry officials had predicted oil shipments from southern Iraq would resume in as early as three months. But this week, a British commander said that's contingent on a $1 billion investment in the Rumailah field.

The United States has in recent years received about 9 percent of its crude oil from Iraq, according to Redmond.

He said oil prices will be helped by an OPEC promise to make up for any production shortfall that results from the war. "That appears to be easing the effect of the war."

Still, Redmond said, few predictions are reliable in a market that has been hit with an onslaught of unpredictable setbacks recently.

Contributing to the earlier uncertainty over Iraq were a strike among Venezuela oil workers, a bitter winter in the Northeast and Midwest, cuts in 2002 OPEC production and a depletion of U.S. oil inventories, he said. Now, civil unrest in Nigeria, the United State's sixth-largest oil supplier, is threatening imports on another front.

Despite all the uncertainty and volatility in the oil market, Americans don't appear moved by higher gasoline prices. If anything, they are buying more gas than usual, Redmond said.

"Analysts at the Department of Energy were surprised by the high level of demand for gasoline products during the months of January and February, which is traditionally one of the down times," he said.

The Energy Department did note a sag in consumption the week the war began. That, however, corresponded with a jump in the hours Americans spent glued to their television sets, watching the war, said Redmond.

Web By CHERIE JACOBS cjacobs@tampatrib.com Published: Mar 29, 2003

TAMPA - With a $20 bill in her hand, Cindy Arens was skipping the chips.

She topped off her gas tank, stopping the meter just shy of $19, and used the last dollar or so for a Diet Coke inside the 7-Eleven at Gunn Highway and Henderson Road.

``Normally, if I was going in I'd spend $20 on gas and probably $3 or $4 on munchies.''

But gas is now so expensive that it takes more than $25 to fill the tank of her Toyota Camry. So she skimps on both the gas and the food.

``I don't want to go over $20,'' the 52-year-old Tampa woman said.

Arens represents the changing economy. As gas prices hover near all-time highs, consumers are cutting back in other areas.

Friday's Commerce Department report showed consumer spending was flat in January and February, holding at an annual rate of $7.49 trillion.

Although winter weather was a big factor dampening retail sales in February, economists said consumers are becoming more cautious in the muddled economic climate.

From cups of coffee to bags of chips, consumers are trimming nickels and dimes from their everyday expenses.

The chief executive officer of 7-Eleven, Jim Keyes, has noticed. When gas prices rise, his stores across the country sell fewer gallons of milk and cartons of cigarettes, instead selling more quarts of milk and single packs of smokes. Some shoppers eschew large coffees and Slurpees for smaller sizes.

We think gasoline is a bigger driver of the near-term economy than unemployment. When gasoline costs go up 20 cents a gallon, it affects everyone,'' Keyes said. More and more people are looking at gasoline being a daily necessity. It forces a difference in your buying patterns.''

In February, 7-Eleven stores in Florida reflected that trend.

Small coffees were outselling larger sizes by at least 30 percent, compared with the previous month, when gas prices first jumped. In that same time, sales of gallons of milk were down 8.5 percent. Single-serving bags of chips were up 14 percent compared with January's sales.

If the price of gasoline rises 20 cents a gallon, that could cost a customer an extra $50 a month, he said.

If you had $100 in your pocket for the month, and now you have $50, you have no choice; you have to cut your spending back,'' Keyes said. I'm not sure it's as much conscious as it is `How much change do I have in my pocket?' ''

One economist says the concept is real.

``If you have to pay $25 for a tank of gas, you're less likely to buy something at the convenience store,'' said Brad Kamp, associate professor of economics at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Products related to each other are called complementary goods. An example is chips and salsa. When the price of salsa drops, sales of tortilla chips go up, he said.

The stuff at a convenience store is almost entirely complementary to gas,'' Kamp said. You wouldn't think that candy and gasoline are related to each other, but they are.''

The national average gas price has risen nearly 20 cents a gallon since the first of the year because of a recent strike in Venezuela that reduced exports to the United States; tight worldwide crude oil supplies; and nervousness about conflict with Iraq.

Gas rose from about $1.47 for a gallon of regular unleaded to $1.66 - so putting 10 gallons in a tank went from $14.67 to $16.63. That means customers have to shift the extra $2 they would spend on coffee or chips to pay for the higher cost of gas.

Because of that, most convenience stores probably have seen a drop in sales of candy bars and gallons of milk, Kamp said.

``When you just had a sticker shock of putting all your money into your gas tank, you're less likely to buy something on impulse,'' Kamp said.

Times like these trigger patterns in consumer spending, said Cary Silvers, vice president with marketing research firm RoperASW in New York.

It's the nonessential expenditures that consumers slash first, typically - reductions in spending on luxury items, dining out and entertainment, he said. Big-ticket purchases such as cars and houses generally are postponed.

For author David Bach, penny-pinching was such an attractive savings strategy that he registered a trademark on the phrase ``latte factor'' to express the idea that people can save millions of dollars over their lifetimes by cutting out small expenses, like the pricey, milky coffee latte.

That's borne out in February's consumer spending numbers. Shoppers cut spending on big-ticket goods such as cars and appliances by 2.2 percent, on top of a 4.9 percent cut in January. And spending on items such as food and clothes was flat in February, compared with a 1.3 percent rise in January.

Spending on services, including utilities, rose 0.5 percent in February, up from a 0.3 percent gain, a reflection of higher energy prices.

Claudia White is caught in the gas price squeeze. Gone are the days when she pops into the 7-Eleven to get candy or gum. Instead of $14 to fill up her tank, it now costs $18. So she pays at the pump, to avoid the temptation of a cup of coffee or a newspaper.

I don't even go inside anymore,'' she said. I try to pay outside so I don't spend any more money.''

Information from Dow Jones News Service and The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Cherie Jacobs can be reached at (813) 259-7668.

Subscribe to the Tribune and get two weeks free Place a Classified Ad Online Subscribe to TBO.com Insider - Bucs Edition