This pertains specifically to Ontario, Canada, but is reflected elsewhere. We should be paying about $0.90/L for gasoline, but we aren't. The oil companies talk about crude oil pricing, but more and more, it has little to do with the price of gasoline.
In 2008, oil hit $140/barrel and gasoline hit $1.42/L. Since there are 170L's of oil per drum of oil, this worked out to a price ratio of
1.71:1 gasoline versus oil. Now, oil is only (at this time) $90.00/barrel, (it actually fell to $83 a couple weeks back) but gasoline is $1.28/L. This is a gasoline to oil price ratio of 2.41:1. This represents a price increase on gasoline of almost 42% compared to 2008. Even factoring out the $0.08/ L tax the Ontario liberals levied on gas with the HST, gasoline and oil prices are still vastly more divergent than years ago with increases that greately exceed inflation.