Is Big Oil Just Playing Head Games With Us?

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KFMB NEWS 8

Plunging gas prices have skidded to a halt in the last week, and some say they may be on their way back up. The average price of self serve regular gas here in San Diego is $3.09 a gallon. So what can we expect to see at the pump?

Energy analysts are calling it the spring surge, which means those weak winter prices are about to snowball out of control.

"I think they are an outrage, that's what I think," one consumer said.

Big oil is making big money, and UCAN's Charles Langley says it's nothing new.

"By the way, it's not the spring surge, it's the spring gouge," he said.

Kind of like 30 years ago in 1978, when gas prices shot up 12 cents - to a whopping 60 cents a gallon. Then a decade later in 1988, the big story was that gas finally topped $1 a gallon.

In 1998, gas prices were hovering around $1.50 a gallon. So what happened in the past 10 years to make prices top $2 a gallon, and then $3 a gallon?

Langley says even though the cost of pumping oil hasn't changed - our public perception has.

"We are conditioned to think that $3 a gallon is cheap, and it's not," he said.

Langley accuses the oil companies of manipulating the system by shutting down refineries and driving up the cost of gasoline.

"We are getting bent over an oil barrel," he said.

So are we going to see $4 a gallon?

"It's possible," he said.

According to Langley, about the only thing more powerful than big oil is the American economy, and he says if the economy continues to suffer the oil companies will have a hard time raising the cost of gas.