Gasoline prices may fall to $1 a gallon by early next year, Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski said this week.
Oil prices, which rose to a record $147.27 a barrel in July, were driven up by speculators, and "there is a chance the market will overshoot on the way back down," resulting in much lower prices at the pump, Petrowski said during a talk in Newton, Mass.
Gulf Oil's headquarters left Pittsburgh in the 1980s when it was acquired by Chevron Corp., and its current incarnation, Chelsea, Mass.-based Gulf Oil LP, is a petroleum wholesaler that has been working to build a network of franchised stations.
Gulf distributes fuels to about 1,800 branded service stations in the Northeast, including about 35 in the Pittsburgh region that carry the familiar orange logo -- once a much more prominent sight along local roads.
Petrowski said that oil, which settled at $43.67 a barrel today, may fall to $20 a barrel. Average gasoline prices nationwide slipped under $1.80 a gallon yesterday, a four-year low.
Just four months ago, crude oil prices shot close to $150, and the average, per-gallon cost to consumers was more than $4. Crude has fallen nearly $27 in one month.
Petrowski became Gulf's CEO in 2005 after more than 20 years with other energy companies. He correctly predicted on Oct. 14, 2007, that oil, then trading at $83.69 a barrel, would rise to $100 within six months.
He said the price of oil should range from $40 to $60 a barrel, depending on economic activity, in order to keep pace with inflation.
No comments:
Post a Comment