Why are Missouri Gas Prices Rising?

If I'm not in the best mood today, please forgive me. I just put gasoline in my family's car. It hurt. A lot. More than usual actually. If you've also noticed that gas prices in Missouri are on the rise, I've done some research to figure out why and the short version is you can blame Saudi Arabia and the summer heat.

The cheapest gas I could find today in West Quincy, Missouri was $3.49. That was about 20 cents higher than I remember when I gassed up previously. After that painful gas up experience, I made up my mind to figure out what changed. The reasons are somewhat complicated as you might expect, but there are two principle parties responsible:

Not necessarily in that order either. Yahoo Finance said that OPEC was cutting production to the tune of 3.3 million barrels per day. Dang.

They went on to say that refinery production in America had declined output due to "extreme heat". Tell me about it. My production has declined, too, thanks to the summer heat.

There is good news in all of this. The report says that prices are actually slightly less this summer than last and Missouri gas prices remain some of the lowest in the country as AAA's map shows.

If you haven't gassed up your vehicle of choice lately, prepare your mind and your wallet. Prices have gone up and there's no sign that they're going down anytime soon either.