WXYZ on rising gas prices for May

Here's a video I could have used for Gas down while oil is up for May 2016, Gas prices spike in metro Detroit from WXYZ.

Drivers in metro Detroit may have noticed gas prices spiking in the area by nearly 20 cents in some places.

That price rise is showing up only weakly at the stations in my old neighborhood.  GasBuddy shows that regular has risen from $2.27 to $2.32 for the corner station and $2.29 for the stations down the street.

The Wall Street Journal reported higher prices than last week, listing Friday's closes for WTI at $47.75 and Brent at $48.72, both higher than the $46.21 and $47.83 a week ago today .  The good news is that both are lower than yesterday's prices, which are still on Oil-Price.Net, $48.16 for WTI and $48.81 for Brent, which were only a few cents below their closes on Wednesday, the highest of the year, when WTI hit $48.95 and Brent hit $49.85.  Credit firefighters keeping the wildfire from Alberta's oil sands for that change in the direction of oil prices.

RBOB has also risen week over week from $1.58 at the end of April through $1.59 last week to $1.64 today.  Like crude oil, that's lower than its peak earlier this year at $1.66, a nine-month high.  

The decline at the end of the week in energy futures suggests that price increases will likely stall out next week, at least until the Memorial Day weekend.  That should come as good news after the Detroit average jumping more than a dime from last week's $2.24 to $2.35 while the US average climbed from $2.22 to $2.28 over the same period.  On and especially after Memorial Day, I expect the seasonal increase from driving season will push prices up regardless of the price of oil.  The only question is how fast and how high.