Oil prices dropped below $129 a barrel. The sharp decline came amid a growing sense that soaring gas and oil prices have cut demand for fuel during the normally busy summer driving season. At the pump, retail gasoline prices rose, but only slightly.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery fell $3.34 to settle at $128.85 a [...]

As some drivers hit the road for the Memorial Day weekend, they faced the sobering reality that it now costs $87 to fill a Ford Explorer SUV, up $14 from last year, and $72 to fill a mid-sized Honda Accord, up $12.
Gas prices, which took another jump overnight, are up nearly 20 percent, or 65 [...]

Americans getting an early start on the Memorial Day weekend found that gasoline prices again sprinted to a new record high overnight, reaching a national average above $3.83 a gallon for regular. Some analysts predict gas will surge past $4 as early as next week. It’s already above that in some places.
Oil prices fell Thursday [...]

Runaway oil prices blew past $130 a barrel for the first time Wednesday and kept going, while gasoline prices persisted in their own relentless climb, rising above $3.80 a gallon.
Wednesday’s rally was fed in part by a report from the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, which said crude inventories fell last week, when analysts expected [...]

Top executives of the five largest oil companies tried to shift the country’s anger over high petroleum prices to a debate over supplies in a hearing on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the executives there’s “a disconnect” between normal supply and demand and the skyrocketing price of oil — surpassing $130 a barrel even [...]

Lehman Brothers analyst Paul Cheng said the EIA report was bullish for petroleum interests, but he has some concerns. Refinery runs, he said are rising as demand for gasoline and distillates weakens. Combined with new ethanol plant startups in the next few months, Cheng thinks gasoline margins may have peaked and will decline again soon.
Soleil-Back [...]

Crude-oil inventories fell unexpectedly last week after four straight weeks of gains.
For the week ended May 16, crude-oil inventories dropped by 5.4 million barrels to 320.4 million barrels, which is 6.5 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly report.
Analysts expected a gain of 900,000 barrels, according to [...]

Oil prices bolted to a new record above $132 a barrel Wednesday after the government reported that supplies of crude oil and gasoline fell unexpectedly last week. And crude’s rise in the futures market again pressured consumers by pulling prices at the pump higher — a gallon of regular gas rose overnight to a new [...]

A survey by MasterCard SpendingPulse finds gasoline demand at the pump last week fell 6.8 percent compared with the same week last year.
Study author Michael McNamara said in a phone interview the seasonal lift in gasoline demand that normally happens around this time of year continues to be stalled, possibly due to record high gasoline [...]

Crude prices spiked to a yet another trading high, as supply concerns mounted and traders poured in for a last-minute buying binge before June contracts expired. At filling stations across the country, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline approached $4, touching $3.80 for the first time.
The June contract for light, sweet [...]