$3.00 Gas for Christmas?

MIDLAND -- Drivers beware. You could see the return of $3.00  gas by Christmas.

The latest Lundberg Survery of cities showed the national price for a gallon of unleaded gas is $2.91.

Here in the Basin we are seeing prices inch towards that number.

One of the reasons gas prices are going up is because the federal reserve keeps printing more money, this leads to inflation worries.

When that happens investors flock to restricted commodities like oil.

But that can have a real impact on regular drivers.

I spoke to some drivers here in the basin who are already feeling the pinch at the pump.

Driving a truck can get expensive.

"It's just the nature of the beast, they go up they go down," said Dunton.
 
Derek Dunton spends over a hundred dollars a week on gas alone.

One of millions of Americans dishing out more cash at the pumps.

"Cuts your dollars a little thin, for christmas and other things but if it helps the economy I don't have a major problem with it," said Dunton.

The latest Lundberg Survey of cities says that gas prices are nearly 28 cents higher than this time last year.

"The concern is that there is going to be an increase in inflation. And what happens is that people flock to commodities," said Professor Scott Carson at UTPB.

Some people here in the Basin attribute the high price of oil to big business.

And that catastrophic oil spill that happened in the gulf last spring.

"Permian basin is doing good, like i said we are very busy. We have more rigs everywhere," said Tommy Flores.

"25% percent of oil in the us comes from the gulf. And since we put more restrictions on drilling in the gulf it decreases supply and increases the price," said Professor Carson.

With prices estimated to reach $3.00 come Christmas, it's making some drivers think twice before getting behind the wheel.

"It makes you think where you are going to go what are you going to do because of the traveling...in a month? Thousands and thousands," said Robert Coffee.

Professor Carson told me that he is surprised that gas prices are up like this.
   
He says that they tend to come down around Christmas time.

But, it doesn't look that way this year.

According to the Lundberg Survey the highest average price in the U.S. was in Long Island, New York at a whopping $3.21 cents a gallon.