Posted on 03/12/2005 11:31:23 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper
Bill Marts of Fergus Falls, Minn., pumps 155 gallons of diesel at the Flying J Travel Plaza in Lockwood [suburb NE of Billings] and kisses $345 goodbye. Going from empty to full sets him back $700. Fuel prices have driven his finances into the red.
"It takes money off my table. I have five trucks and they're losing money every week," Marts said. "Hundreds of companies are going broke every day."
Gas and diesel prices have risen in the past two weeks by 7 percent to 9 percent in the Billings area and drivers are howling.
The $2.22 for diesel here is a dime higher than his home turf, said Marts, who hauls pearl barley from North Dakota to California.
In the East, he pays $2.48 per gallon.
Washington state is the highest, pushing $3 per gallon.
Marts loves reading science fiction and fantasy books, so he named his family business Dragon's Realm Trucking. Two semis he's paid off and family labor supports the loans on his other three trucks.
"My wife and daughter are driving one paid-off truck and I'm driving the other," he said.
Small operators are at a disadvantage to the big trucking companies which can negotiate fuel discounts.
Insurance has jumped 1,000 percent since his father drove trucks, Marts said, and Congress may allow states to levy tolls on truckers.
His 1985 cranberry Kenworth gets six miles to the gallon.
But the 2005 truck he just bought to meet new federal anti-pollution regulations gets just 5 miles per gallon.
"How can you burn more fuel to make less pollution? I don't understand that," he said.
His dad was making as much money 30 years ago as he earns today, Marts complained.
"New trucks then cost $40,000, compared to $138,000 today and fuel was 19 cents a gallon," he said.
After refinancing his Minnesota home twice, Marts wonders how long his family can hang on.
"I keep thinking this year is the year rates will go up," he said. "They don't."
Split personality
West Parkway Sinclair at Laurel Road and Parkway Lane caters to big rigs by offering maneuvering room around the pumps, a truckers' lounge and a discount on omelets.
The older pumps for diesel and gas don't take credit cards. They sport handwritten "pre-pay" signs.
Clerk Carol Heath explained that as prices rise, so does the number of drive-offs.
"We're privately owned, so it hurts us pretty bad," she said.
Billings area prices were sitting around $1.95 until last week when they rose to $2.08. Some stations like the Town Pump Lockwood by the East Bridge held prices lower for a few days, then they followed suit.
At the Town Pump, Billings geologist Chuck Hauptman topped off his blue Jeep on the way to the Yellowstone to bounce stinkbait in front of catfish.
For 50 years, he's run an independent energy company, Enthalpy Inc., and three of his boys are in the business. So Hauptman jokes that he's torn on this issue: Pay at the pump. Collect in dividends.
A veteran of the Italian campaign in World War II with the embattled 10th Mountain Division, Hauptman talks about real life problems like seeing almost half the men in his division killed or wounded.
People bellyache about gas prices, he said, but they don't slow down.
When you adjust for inflation, today's prices still are a buck below the $3.08 per gallon record in March 1981. That's according to the Energy Information Administration in Washington, D.C.
And Europeans are paying the equivalent of $4.50 a gallon, he said, so Americans still have a good deal.
"They're just spoiled," he said. "They've been the fortunate recipients of a very cheap commodity."
Jackin' it up
A convenience premium can be charged where traffic rolling down Interstate 90 searches for fuel.
Regular gas at the two Lockwood exits and South 27th Street costs $2.08.
However, the highest price spotted in Billings Friday was at the Trading Post Conoco off the King Avenue West exit where regular was $2.13.
Angie Just has sold gas there for three years.
When asked why the owners charge so much, she laughed and said, "Because they can."
Half her customers grumble now.
"I've even had complaints from locals that they've canceled their vacation because of high gas," Just said.
At a pump outside the store, Bill Neatrour of Yakima, Wash., filled his small Ford pickup pulling a U-haul full of tools.
He's driving to Bradford, Pa., to build three custom homes.
"It's ridiculous because I travel a bit and I have to fill up every 300 miles," he said.
While crossing the West, Neatrour paid $2.02 for regular unleaded in Yakima and found the worst deal in Western Montana.
"The highest I've seen so far was just inside Missoula," he said. "It was $2.23, so I went to the next town and saved a dime."
Yet when the quarterly financial reports come out, the oil companies will post 'record profits'.
Something just doesn't add up.
(BTW, I work in the oil & gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico)
What is odd is Billings has oil refineries right in town, and it's usually the highest prices in the state, next to those in the Eastern part of the state where I reside.
I have updated my FMCDH (From My Cold Dead Hands) sign-off with the addition of (BITS).....Blood In The Streets, which I foresee coming soon, due to the enormous increase of the Marxist progressive movement being shoved down the throat of this failing REPUBLIC through the Judicial tyranny of fiat law, the passing of unconstitutional laws by the Legislative and Executive branches of our government and the enormous tax burden placed upon the average American to support unconstitutional programs put forth by Marxist ideology.
Until the powers that be stands up (hahahaha) to the marxist members of our elected government and puts a halt to what goes on every day in the "hallowed halls" of Washington, this ain't gonna get any better (in my best KKKByrd voice).
Our votes have become a sham. Those that we elected are doing nothing about any of this. The "pubs" have a sitting President and "control" of both houses, not to mention the "pub" governorships won in the last 2 years?...what a joke. What a sham. These "right wing warriors" can't even get a judge his right to an up or down vote. Pantywastes.
FMCDH(BITS)
We're working on retapping wells that were considered 'unprofitable' just a few years ago.
Granted the oilfield service companies are making serious $ from the oil companies, but I still think the American people are getting ripped off.
What does any of that have to do with my article? Nothing? Thought so.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
There has been considerable oil pipline construction up in NE Montana and NW North Dakota the last few years. I had a CAT scan and MRI appointment in one of the "oil towns" not far from here, and I got the last hotel room in the whole town of about 3,000. Every hotel room was occupied by out of state workers who happen to be employed by the company contructing the pipeline. I saw license plates on pickup trucks from as far away as Lousiana and Kentucky in the parking lot. The Williston Basin has seen a revival of sorts in oil refining as of late.
Yep. 'Fraid so. Because of those Liberal nitwits and their shortsightedness, we'll all be plunking down an extra two bits for gas this summer.
FMCDH(BITS)
I heard of all kinds of 'changes' that was supposed to occur with a Republican president and Congress...and I'm still waiting.
We, the little people, get screwed either way.
It because of thirty years of environmentalist wacko dictates being the reason why we are dependent on foreign sources of oil. Thirty years ago, this country was self-dependent, with a robust oil refining industry. The evironmentalists stepped in, demanded Washington start clamping down on all that progress, and through it all, nearly shut down every single oil pump and refining plant in this country. You want someone to blame? Thirty years ago, it was the Democrats who controlled all of Washington. The Senate as it stands now, has a full plate; Social Security reform, hundreds of judicial nominees. It's not going to happen overnight.
They WERE unprofitable. When oil was cheap it didn't make sense to pull this oil out of the ground. Now that prices are higher, it has become profitable.
We're seeing the same thing happen as happened after Reagan deregulated oil prices. When the price was allowed to rise (getting rid of Nixon's price controls) domestic production increased because that oil was finally profitable to pump. Interestingly enough, the US actually went on to out-produce the Persian Gulf region around, I think, 1985. And that was long after the US reached peak production in 1970.
Granted the oilfield service companies are making serious $ from the oil companies, but I still think the American people are getting ripped off.
Now you're talking like a liberal.
Prices are what they are for a reason. People that complain are wasting their time at best, and at worst are encouraging government action to "fix" the problem.
Nixon tried with price controls and all it led to was long lines at the pump, as prices were too low to lift supply and too low to reduce demand.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Actually, it's mostly due to a certain Republican president's weak dollar policy.
Whine, whine, whine. The enviro-lefties have been arguing for $3-$5 a gallon gasoline for years to "curb usage and help conservation" for years.
They only whine now because they wanted that increase to be in government gas taxes and not actual prices. Thus it's okay for gas to go up as long as the government is getting more to spend but it's not okay if oil companies get the increase. And that increase doesn't equal higher profits in that they have to also pay the higher per gallon price for crude since most of our oil is foreign.
This is, as usual, nothing but knee-jerk repsonses to an elastic commodity price increase. Let's put it in real terms...if you drive 40 miles a day to work, Monday thru Friday, and get 23 miles per gallon, an increase of 75 cents per gallon (from the $1.50 a couple years ago to $2.25 today in some places) comes out to $27 a month.
If anyone is that concerned over another $27 per month all they have to do is spend that much less somewhere else. Rent less movies...one less night out to dinner...use one-ply instead of two-ply toilet paper! ;-)
The point is everyone consumes gasoline at a different rate and can easily shift the increase in cost from some other spending if need be.
We're FReepers, remember?
Come on, no need to be nasty! I know the oil companies are out to make a profit (who isn't). But like I stated in an earlier post, they'll post 'record profits' come April, and it's the little guy that's paying those profits.
I'm neither Democrat nor Republican...if I were a liberal I'd quit my job on principle, if I were a Republican I wouldn't complain at all (I've been making some serious money these past few months). I simply want honesty.
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