via NYPOST:
Experts say the OPEC+ oil cartel’s shock decision to slash production will make the next few months “pretty painful for drivers” — and wide-eyed motorists are already reeling from sticker shock.
“Here we go again,” Vincent Bruno, 50, said Tuesday morning as he gassed up his sedan at a Sunoco on Queens Boulevard in Briarwood, where a gallon of regular costs $3.60. “It’s not a huge hike, but it’s just enough to get you where it hurts. They don’t care about the little guy.”
Miguel Reyes, a 44-year-old bus driver from Kew Gardens, Queens, said he thought prices were dropping until he reached his local Shell station, where it was listed at $3.46 per gallon.
“It is a burden — a few more dollars, it adds up,” Reyes said. “That money has to come from somewhere else. Maybe I buy the lower-priced ice cream for my kids or the lower-priced cereal that they don’t like.”
And it will likely only get worse.
With its Sunday decision to suddenly chop production by more than a million barrels a day, the powerful oil cartel — which counts Russia among its members — immediately drove up the price of a barrel of Brent crude from about $77 on March 31 to $81 on April 3.
There were instant consequences at the pump.
On Tuesday, a gallon of gas went for about $3.50 per gallon nationwide, according to AAA’s online tracker.
Wall Street observers have said that the OPEC+ cuts could eventually push the price beyond $100 a barrel, which would certainly drive up per-gallon rates and frustrate American drivers still aching from last year’s record-high gas prices.