Soaring Gas Prices Raise Questions About Price Gouging
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Skyrocketing gas prices – caused by a major outage at BP's refinery in Whiting, Indiana – have drivers griping, and some calling for a price-gouging investigation.
Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, called the recent spike in prices at the pump one of the worst he's ever seen.
Prices in the Midwest have soared after BP was forced to shut down one of the three crude distillation units at its refinery in Whiting last week. The refinery is one of the nation's largest, and the outage has the plant running at less than half its capacity.
While pumping gas at a BP station where a gallon of regular was at $3.69, Dane said he's "very, very, very skeptical" about the prices, and he thinks gas station owners are taking advantage of the situation to gouge customers. Prices have gone up as much as $1 per gallon at some stations since the refinery outage.
"You would think it was some catastrophe, or some explosion, or something," he said. "Not only did it raise by about a dollar overnight, but it sustained it."
Austin was griping as he filled up his cab on Wednesday. He also suspected price-gouging.
"They should bring it down to like $2.99. It's too much. We're trying to survive," he said.
Officials in Michigan have called for an investigation into possible price gouging, as prices there also have soared.
BP has not released an official timeline for repairs to the damaged distillation unit, but published reports have stated it could take more than a month to fix the 240,000-barrel-per-day unit.