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Tropical Storm Causes Rise in Oil Prices

Oil prices went up to $72 a barrel as Tropical Storm Alberto approached the gulf coast of Florida, even though there are few oil drilling areas or refining facilities in the area. Last year?s devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina also caused oil prices to rise, but in that case concerns were validated by the heartland of the U.S. oil industry being hard-hit by Mother Nature. It might be the case that we will see even more instances of oil prices rising on storm warnings, especially should a storm develop this season similar in size and strength to Hurricane Katrina.

Oil prices have fluctuated as of late for a variety of reasons, not least of which has been the international crisis over one of the world?s major oil suppliers, Iran. Should there be as fierce a storm season as meteorologists are now predicting, drivers in the United States would face even higher gasoline prices than they must deal with at the moment. And efforts to open up a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling in order to reduce American reliance on foreign oil have run into stumbling blocks set by Democrats and environmental groups.

In much of the U.S. gas prices have already reached $3-a-gallon or higher, and while many had hoped as gas prices began to fall recently that the $3-a-gallon mark would be the peak, storms and international crises could lead to a situation where it simply becomes too expensive to drive except to work and home, and lead to the building of a mass transit system not reliant on fossil fuels in many cities that have none in order to lessen the negative financial impacts of potential nuclear weapons programs and hurricanes.