As of 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, the average local retail gasoline price in the Dayton area was $3.16 a gallon and Ohio had an average of $3.14 a gallon, according to DaytonGasPrices.com.
“Oil prices went up almost 9 percent (Monday) in electronic trading,” DeHaan said. “The rise in oil prices is not necessarily because of a supply issue. The rise in crude oil prices has more to do with the increased risk of unrest spreading to these other countries that do produce oil for the United States,” DeHaan said.
A combination of recent world events, including the unrest in Libya and BP’s announcement of pulling personnel out of Libya, has investors nervous that the unrest will spread to Saudi Arabia, according to DeHaan.
“They are concerned that the unrest in Libya will destabilize the entire region,” DeHaan said of investors.
Saudi Arabia is a key player in the oil game because it produces two million barrels of oil per day for the U.S., according to DeHaan. “They also hold the most spare capacity out of any country in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),” he said. “If something were to happen to Saudi Arabia then there are virtually no other countries that hold the spare capacity that can meet the increased needs of our country. Saudi Arabia’s crude oil reserves are among the largest of any country in the world.”