“And our prices are at nearly all-time highs.....”
I suspect you’re thinking that if we restrict gas exports that the price of gas will fall. Let’s suppose that the government decides to lower domestic gasoline prices by doing that. Go to this link to compare world-wide gas prices with taxes:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/interactives/_business/gallon_gas/index.html?SITE=ILBLO&SECTION=HOME
What you’ll notice is that the price of gas without taxes is pretty close except in Russia, China and India.
If you go to this link: http://business.whatitcosts.com/refine-oil-pg3.htm
You’ll see…
• 74% - Cost of the crude oil
• 11% - Taxes
• 10% - Refining costs
• 5% - Distribution and marketing
So, 74% of the cost of a gallon of gas is made up from the cost of buying crude oil. So, the idea of forcing oil companies to keep gas here rather then exporting it comes down to them eating some of the costs above. The paragraph below is from the article on costs. It says the oil company profit per gallon is already down. This may sound conter-intuitive to a gas buyer, but we WANT the company to make a proft as that is their motive for supplying the gas.
“As of 1999, for every gallon of gasoline refined from crude oil, U.S. oil refiners made an average profit of 22.8 cents. By 2004, the profits jumped to 40.8 cents per gallon of gasoline refined. In the specialized California market where the gasoline must conform to the requirements of the California Air Resources Board, refinery margins were even higher. In fact, this helped Exxon, the largest company, report a profit (as of February 2008) of $40.6 billion. Nevertheless, one financial tracking institution reported that the profit-margins have now dropped to about 29.6 cents a gallon or around 60 percent lower than a year ago.”
After all, it is the US consumer that is paying for all the envro regs & monitoring as well as the ports for shipping (channel dredging), etc. w/ our domestic consumption.
