Does anyone else feel like crude oil price is dropping faster than gas prices? ?

I see today it's down to ~$ 95 a barrel... so ~$95 /42 gal per barrel= $2.26 * 18% fuel taxes= $2.66 a gallon.





Why is it so much higher, shouldn't it be below $3 at the current Crude oil barrel price?Does anyone else feel like crude oil price is dropping faster than gas prices? ?
It clearly is, on a percentage basis. Oil dropped by a lot today, but gas increased by a lot. There are a few caveats:





(1) The last time oil was at these prices it was mid-winter and now it is late summer. Gas formulations (additives, %26amp;c) change from winter to summer with the summer formulation being generally more expensive. So all else being equal we'd expect higher prices now.





(2) No one is ever as happy to lower prices as they are to raise them, so price lowering tends to be a longer process than price raising.





(3) It takes time for oil to get processed into gasoline, so price drops in oil happen weeks before price drops in gas.





(4) (and this is the big one right now) A hurricane just hit some major refineries (which convert crude oil to gasoline) in Texas. While it looks like damage is slight, the refineries have been offline for a few days. So even with the price of oil lowering, the refineries being offline lowers the supply of gasoline raising its market price independent of the price of oil.