Gas prices in Ottawa - has anyone noticed the change?

I think it was two weeks ago that I woke up and heard the CFRA business editor announcing that gas spiked overnight and was selling for $1.109 a litre. Don't get me wrong - I do not enjoy paying in excess of a dollar a litre, never mind $1.10 and up. I couldn't help but wonder why an overnight increase of four cents was headline news.

Not so long ago, buying gas in Ottawa was almost like a game. I can't remember the specific days of the week, but it wasn't uncommon for gas prices to go on a ferris-wheel like ride every seven days or so.

For example...

Take day one in the morning - gas was selling at most area retailers for about 77.9 cents per litre. By noon it might be 77.2 cents, and by dinner time it would be 76.5 cents. Come 11pm, it might be 74.9. On day two, the price would start out around 76.5, it would trickle down throughout the day to about 73.9. On day three, one could find gas selling for 74.9 and it would go down throughout the day. And so on, and so on. Usually around day five or six, given this week's starting point of 77.9 cents per litre, one could find gas selling for 69.9 cents. Rejoice! Fill up! Leave the gas station contented, knowing that on day seven or eight or so, the price would go back up to 79.9, only to go through the machinations over the coming week once again.

I always looked at the gas price trends with interest because of the somewhat fluid state of gasoline pricing. I would be fascinated because when I'd travel to eastern Canada, I couldn't help but notice that gas prices were somewhat fixed - there was no 'give and go' on a daily basis like it was back home.

We don't seem to have that give and go anymore. Sure, prices still move a bit from day to day or week to week, but not the way it used to. Maybe gas companies figured out that the so-called admin costs associated with constantly changing inventory prices cost them too much and affected the bottom line even in the slightest way. We all know that billions in quarterly profits isn't good enough anymore, so anything that cost the big evil empire more than -- nothing -- was simply unacceptable.

My point? Back then, for several years, it wasn't uncommon for prices to fluctuate up to 10 cents per litre, per day! Now a hike of four cents overnight is headline news. Not only that, but it's twice now in recent months that the petroleum companies like Esso, Petro Canada, Shell, Sunoco et al deem it necessary to announce that "gas prices will be going down 4 cents per litre tomorrow morning" for whatever reason.

Why?!

ExxonMobil posted net earnings in excess of $39 billion dollars last year. We're paying record prices at the pump and nobody's gone nuts in the middle east, no hurricanes have flattened refineries and - (this next bit is satirical sarcasm) no petroleum company has set a refinery on fire lately, giving valid excuses for the prices being as high as they currently are. Remember that southern-Ontario refinery fire that sent the price of gasoline over $1/litre? That's a long time ago now. Gas stations aren't closing due to lack of fuel anymore. We're still paying over a buck a litre and yet crude oil hasn't been at all-time highs in what - years, now?

What's going on?

I guess ExxonMobil is shooting for $50 billion this year and its competitors are only too happy to oblige by hiking their prices and padding their bottom lines.

We'll see. Crude's trading down about $1.50 a barrel today. Let's see what happens at the pumps next month.