Price At the Pump: Oil Prices Continue To Move Back And Forth

To say oil prices have been volatile to start the month of August may be a bit of an understatement.  After dropping notably, oil prices rallied in the past week to nearly $80 per barrel.

“Week before last, we saw a better than expected jobless figure that added to concerns that potentially we wouldn't see the Fed cut interest rates," noted Patrick DeHaan is with GasBuddy.com.  "And then late last week we saw a worse than expected jobless number or unemployment number. So oil prices went right back up. A barrel of West Texas intermediate crude oil about, $7.00 higher than a week ago at $79.”

While oil prices have moved higher as of recent, DeHaan noted that diesel prices are down, primarily because of economic concerns in the U.S. and China, which is resulting in less demand for diesel.  As far as the weeks ahead, DeHaan anticipates oil prices will continue to be a rollercoaster ride.

“We are still coming up to the peak of hurricane season, which is a couple of weeks away. Any major storm could knock off Gulf Coast oil rigs. We're also kind of in the middle of uncertainty over the U.S. and global economy. Will we see the Fed pull off the gentle landing in the economy? Will China's? Economy falter. There's a lot of open-ended questions," DeHaan continued.  "In addition to that, I haven't even mentioned the possibilities of a conflict in the Middle East. Of course, Iran had promised retribution against Israel after Israel launched drone attacks. So. There's a lot of uncertainty. The volatility will likely persist. I would think that oil prices would spend the majority of the rest of the year somewhere in the 70 to $85 barrel region.” 

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