once upon a time, I worked for a major oil company and was in charge of some financial reports. just raising gas a dime meant billions upon billions in extra revenue for them. we are talkin' serious six foot high stacks of CASH.

so......it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they use "trigger events" to jack up the price. an oil spill here, a broken pipeline there, a war breaks out, whatever, there is no good reason to jack up the price other than it is great for the oil company's bottom line. the oil guys are always going to have their hands in our pockets. squeezing us for all we've got (and then some).