There are countless articles in the media and journals discussing the mechanics of gas prices, however there there is an interesting statistic not being discussed in many places; gallon prices as a proportion of crude oil barrel price. The latter variable is the focus of last week’s oil price crash. The former, though, is what we see at the pump.

When crude oil peaked during the week of July 14, so did America’s per-gallon gas price. At that time we were paying a price that was 2.76% of the crude oil price. Last week, oil crashed to $77.70 a barrel, but local gas prices stayed high. On Friday I paid $3.59 per gallon, a price that is 4.62% the price of crude oil.

Discuss amongst yourselves. In the meantime, have you seen raleighgasprices.com? It appears that gas is ranging from $3.20 per gallon and $3.79 per gallon.