We didn’t see $100 barrel crude oil today, but it could occur while Americans are filling their gullets tomorrow, or racking up credit card debt on Friday. Global oil markets are open Thursday and Friday, and the rest of the world is perhaps more bullish about oil’s prospects than U.S. companies and residents. Shameless plug: Our database that tracks retail prices for gasoline and diesel pump prices never sleeps. If you visit the website at www.fuelgaugereport.com tomorrow or Friday, you’ll get fresh numbers and not leftovers.

   Overnight we saw WTI crude oil futures hit an all time record high of $99.29 bbl; and heating oil hit a temporary apex of $2.7155 gal while gasoline blendstock spent a brief moment at $2.472 gal. After the release of today’s Department of Energy report (which showed inventory drawdowns for crude oil, heating oil, and diesel, but a slight build for gasoline stocks), the market drifted lower. Futures settled at $97.30 bbl for crude; $2.6874 gal for heating oil; and $2.4371 gal for gasoline.

   Again, I’ll stress that the rest of the world will be trading oil tomorrow while we watch three NFL games. (Correction:  We’ll watch two games. The Packers & Lions and Jets-Cowboys’ games are on mainstream channels; I’m not sure who gets the NFL network which will be televising the Colts-Falcons evening battle).

   Today, we put our collective thoughts together and came up with some numbers that provide a perspective on what we’ll pay this long holiday weekend (we’re not on holiday Friday here, but many people are).

  This is not a precise calculation that I would transfer to determining the atomic weight of an element. But looking at current numbers, recent demand trends, and applying some metrics from history, we can come up with some reasonable estimates of 2007 costs compared to last year and versus other moments in time.

  Two major  assumptions:

    We’ll count a five day weekend for Thanksgiving, recognizing that the travel spree runs from Wednesday through Sunday. There is usually some holiday “lift” to typical demand from the first half of November. Based on the most recent demand, I’m assuming that gasoline demand from today through Sunday will measure around 9.5-million bbl per day, or 399-million gallons per day.  The numbers that I’ll use for 2006 and for 2002 will extrapolate actual demand stats published by the Department of Energy.

   The second assumption is that gasoline prices are a moving target, and are headed higher as we speak. The nationwide average stood just under $3.09 gal this morning, but there is some catching up to do with this week’s wholesale moves. Accordingly, I’m projecting that the five day period in 2007 will see an average U.S. price of $3.11 gal. The historical columns will use the actual recorded prices in the OPIS database.

Here’s how the pricing and demand chips fall:

Year (5 Days)  Avg Retail     Daily Demand           Bill per diem & 5 days

Current            $3.11 gal         399-million gal

                                                  (9.5-million bbl)    $1.241-billion; $6.204-billion

2006                 $2.338gal         395-million gal     $883.56-million; $4.418-billion

2002                 $1.395gal          378-million gal      $528- million; $2.64-billion

   Conclusions: We’re likely to pay about $357.44-million more per day and $1.787-billion more over the five day holiday period this year when compared to 2006.  When one takes a longer perspective, it’s much more stunning. We will pay about $686-million more per day this year than during Thanksgiving time in 2002; and the five day difference will be $3.564-billion.

   One could pay for a few subprime company writeoffs with that money, or cover nearly 6,000 Wall Street trader bonuses.