Page 10 ■ Thursday, December 1, 2011


NATION & WORLD


Oil rises near $97 a barrel; prices fall


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Saving 7 cents on a gallon of gas


sounds like small change compared with $200 off the price of a fl at-screen TV. But drivers will take it this holiday season. The average price for a gallon of gas has fallen to $3.31 from $3.38 in just a week. The discount is an even heftier 20 cents a gallon compared with two months ago. In fact, shoppers driving from store to store on the fi rst week- end of the holiday shopping season are paying some of the lowest prices for gas since late winter. Even with the recent declines, how-


ever, the price of gas is 44 cents a gallon higher than on Black Friday a year ago. Tom Kloza, chief oil analysts at Oil Price Information Service,


said. Americans


are on track to spend $488 billion on gas this year. That will eclipse the record set in 2008 by $40 billion. OPIS said last week that U.S. households have spent 8.4 percent of their income on gasoline this year, up from 6.7 percent in 2010 and 7.9 percent in 2008. That may be one reason that malls are bustling this year with shoppers looking for marked-down cashmere sweaters, videogame consoles, tablet computers and fl at-screen televisions. Kloza esti- mated that, at current demand, for every 10 cent decline in the price of gas, Amer- icans save a total of $36 million to spend elsewhere. Retailers hope shoppers rein- vest at least part of their recent savings in gifts for friends and family.


Kloza said current demand for gas in


the U.S. remains “extraordinarily poor.” That’s the main reason why gas prices are dropping even though oil has risen about $17 a barrel, or 21 percent, in the last two months. Oil rose on Black Friday, but was


down slightly for the week. The bench- mark for crude oil in the U.S. rose 60 cents to $96.77. It dropped $1.84 on Nov. 23, before


markets in the U.S. were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. In London, Brent crude for January


delivery fell $1.54 to $105.76 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. In other Nymex trading, heating oil


dropped 3.1 cents to $2.94 per gallon and gasoline futures lost 6.63 cents to $2.4542 per gallon. Natural gas added 5.7 cents to $3.665 per 1,000 cubic feet. The national average for gasoline


peaked just below $4 a gallon in May. Kloza said there are now 23 states where drivers can fi nd gas below $3 per gallon. He cautioned drivers to enjoy the rela- tively cheap prices while they can. Gas prices tend to bottom out in mid-


winter, and then begin to climb through the spring. By Kloza’s calculations, if prices bottom out at $3.10 to $3.20 a gal- lon then, based on historical trends, driv- ers could see gas ranging from $3.75 to as high as $4.50 in the spring. “The trend on Black Friday will be


different from what you see on Good Friday,” he said.


Associated Press


In this Nov. 23 fi le photo, motorists head south toward Los Angeles on Interstate 15 just across the Nevada state line near Primm, Nev. The average price for a gallon of gas has fallen 7 cents in just a week to $3.31. Holiday shopping aside, motorists tend to drive less in the colder months, and refi ners are making cheaper winter blends of gas at this time of year.


By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press


New option in works for drilling in forest CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Offi cials at a


western Wyoming national forest are drafting a new option for allowing a proposed gas drilling project near the Hoback River headwaters with an eye toward reducing the miles of road that would be built. Less roadway could mean fewer well pads or areas where multiple gas wells are concentrated on patches of lev- eled ground covering just a few acres, Bridger-Teton National Forest Super- visor Jacque Buchanan said Nov. 22. “As we develop that alternative,


there is that possibility of a reduced number of pads and relocation of pads,” she said. Houston-based Plains Exploration


and Production Co., also known as PXP, currently wants to drill as many as 136 gas wells from 17 well pads in the forest. Environmentalists object to drill- ing in important habitat for mule deer and other wildlife near the headwaters of the wild Hoback River. They wel- comed the news that the U.S. Forest Service will consider an additional plan for drilling. PXP offi cials have said they are


committed to following regulations and protecting the environment while developing the Eagle Prospect/Noble Basin project. “A tremendous amount of public


resources have been spent reviewing this project for the past six years, and we believe it is appropriate to get a fi - nal decision out so the next steps in the


process can move forward,” company spokesman Ed Memi said by email. Forest offi cials received some 60,000


comments from public offi cials and the general public on the project last winter. About 80 percent were form letters circulated by environmental groups for concerned citizens to sub- mit with their signatures. Consequently, the vast majority


of comments simply objected to any drilling in the Upper Hoback without offering helpful new insights, Buchan- an said.


Other comments pointed out that


three proposals the Forest Service out- lined in a document last year would have exceeded the maximum road density allowed by the overall forest plan, she said. Allowing any of those alternatives,


she said, would require changing the forest plan to increase the maximum road density for the entire forest. Buchanan said her staff will prepare a supplemental draft environmental impact statement to add an alternative to those released last year. They expect to release the new document in Janu- ary before opening a 45-day period for the public to comment on the pro- posal. Road density was an issue the for- est needed to address, said Dan Smi- therman of the group Citizens for the Wyoming Range. The U.S. Environmental Protection


Agency raised concerns in March that the proposals for the project 30 miles southeast of Jackson Hole didn’t offer enough protection for groundwater.


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