Raw material costs are one of the issues. Speculators, investors, and others known as commodity traders set the price for crude oil globally. When the price of crude oil goes up, the price of producing finished products goes up, and one would have to be stupid to believe the companies aren't going to pass the added costs along to the rest of us. Combine that with the rapidly approaching ultra low sulfur diesel fuel requirements and we're in a world of hurt in terms of cheap fuel.
Can blame the low prices in the 80's to 90's when they decided to close a bunch of refineries due to not being particularly profittable. Now they're running their equipment harder than it was meant to be ran to make up for the difference. They can't seem to build new refineries, need to file paperwork out the whazoo to even think about doing anything with their existing ones, so until the eco-nuts cut out their bullcrap, it appears cheap fuel is a pipe dream...
