Oil drives up asphalt tab

Asphalt gathers at the bottom of the barrel at any oil refinery. It’s what’s left over after the gasoline, distillates and fine lubricants are taken away.

It’s black and gooey and smelly and an increasingly costly ingredient when your tax dollars are put to work on highways.

So with oil prices hovering around $70 a barrel – and orange-construction barrels increasingly popping up – asphalt prices are high and getting higher.