It's been a roller coaster ride with gas prices for over a decade now. Mid morning prices on Monday in the Lima area ranged between $3.09 and $3.12 a gallon for unleaded gas, but when the lunch hour rolled around gas had shot up to $3.59 a gallon at many gas stations in Lima. That's a 47 to 50 cents a gallon jump out of nowhere. Shannon Cowper traveled through Lima and said "Oh it's just crazy. Gas prices are crazy. I'm from Illinois so it's a little bit higher, but I see the lines here for the $3.11 gas."
The line was non-stop at Swifty Gas as drivers tried to fill up before Swifty price for gas went up with all the other gas stations. Drivers still never get use to the fluctuating prices and are fed up. Delphos resident Steve Sherrick said "it seems like the gas that we're paying for now when the gas stations got the gasoline didn't cost what they're charging today. I'm not sure if it's going to go up or down tomorrow I'm just happy with what it is right now."
Oil experts say an incident just outside of Dubai is what caused the prices to sky rocket in a matter of hours. A U.S. Navy ship fired on a small boat after it disregarded warnings and raced toward the vessel. The small boat is believed to be a fishing boat. According to former oil consultant, Steve Cleaves, this shows how fear of a military incident can cause a spike in the price at the pump. "The fact is it's a world oil market and this just highlights that. It there's a shortage any where in the world it effects the world oil price and the spike in gasoline prices that happened about noon is evidence of that." said Cleaves he added the gas prices could remain high depending on the reaction from the Iranian government, but if things stay calm he expects gas prices to drop immediately back to where they were right around the $3.10 mark.
