Fuel prices

Year-to-date fuel price data from page 11 of the Sept. 16 Spokesman-Review demands public attention. Natural gas price rose 115.1%; unleaded gasoline rose 55%; and heating oil rose 48.7%.

Gasoline and heating oil are crude oil byproducts, produced by hundreds of U.S. refineries. Their price increases reflect crude oil’s 49.7% price increase.

Most of the natural gas used in North Idaho comes from Canada, a nation badly impacted financially when the USA revoked permits for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Canadian Premier Jason Kenney described Biden’s decision as a “gut-punch…directly attacking, by far, the largest part of the Canada-U.S. trade relationship, which is our energy industry and exports.”

Natural gas and crude oil are two of five fuels listed daily. The others are ethanol, up 54.0%, heating oil, up 48.7% and unleaded gasoline, up 55.0%. We miners know that those five fuels and dozens of metals must all be mined and processed.

ROBERT E. LAUNHARDT

Pinehurst