What We Are About To Do Here Is What The Good Lord Would Call A Cleansing of the Wicked. I Call It A Good Old Fashioned Texas Ass Kicking.
Posted on 08/17/2005 7:22:07 AM PDT by ex-Texan
Two weeks ago the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said national average diesel prices were just 0.1 shy of tying the record high. Last week diesel prices did a 15.9-cent leapfrog over that old record to set the Gasoline prices last week rose a comparable 18.2 cents. New record-setting highs in crude oil prices coupled with scattered refinery outages during the peak summer season has resulted in the steep increases in on-highway fuel.
Truckers operating in all regions were given a price shock, but the West Coast and California regions, which had been slammed with skyrocketing fuel prices over the last four weeks, was spared the worst of the increases. West Coast and California prices rose “only” 9 and 9.9 cents, respectively to $2.891 and $3.042, EIA said. According to the Oil Price Information Service, today California diesel prices averaged $3.129, a boost over $3.003 last week on Aug. 9.
Michael Burdette, EIA senior analyst, told Fleet Owner that the West Coast swing in diesel is consistent with the increases in crude oil. Yesterday, for example, September crude oil futures rose to a new record high of $67.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude oil ended last week 7.3% high, marking the biggest weekly price jump in nearly two-months, according to Dow Jones.
In addition to suffering the same crude oil price jump, the West Coast and California has been hit with an outage of a major California-based Chevron Corp. refinery that supplies the regions. According to EIA, since the refinery outage on July 20, weekly prices in California jumped 46.4 cents—over double the increase of the 22.5-cent rise nationally.
Although prices were expected to plateau with the recent refinery re-start, record high crude oil had propelled it forward instead.
The biggest boost was seen in the Midwest region as prices rose 18.8 cents to $2.524, EIA said. The Gulf Coast holds the claim for having the cheapest diesel prices, despite a 15.8-cent jump to $2.481.
“U.S. refineries have been running at full capacity,” said Burdette. “When there are outages, it tips that very delicate supply balance into the negative range. With refineries running at 96% to 97% capacity, when you lose a refinery, there’s no spare capacity to make it up. We don’t have the ability to ramp up production at another refinery anymore.”
Oregon and Washington are reporting on local television and radio as "the economy is starting to boom." But unemployment increased .5% for both states in 2005. Oregon's unemployment rate is 6.6% compared to the reported official national average of 5%. Read more?. What effect will high diesel fuel prices have in the next six months? Your guess is as good as mine.
I've seen diesel over $3.50/gallon here in California.
while the Bush administration sits on their collective hands...
30 years now and not one single new refinery built in America!
Cheaper Alternative to Bio-Diesel Has Arrived -- 46 Cents Per Gallon
Well, I guess they are not going to be able to hide inflation by not including food and gas now. Everything is transported by truck.
Wouldn't matter. If we had all the refineries we needed, then they would just speculate on some other made up thing to raise the prices.
You hit the nail on the head.
The oil companies are really getting to the truckers, before 1974 diesel prices were always about half of gasoline, when regular gas was costing us $0.299 our diesel was costing $0.139 and when the crunch hit in 74 prices skyrocked and diesel from then on cost more than gasoline.
Good luck with it. I hope it works, but be aware that that is not a news story, it's a press release. I'd check it thoroughly before I risked my car on it.
And political repercussion, as the electorate blames the party in charge.
If this is even possible, then why didn't they do it when gas was $0.99 a gallon? Why didn't they "speculate on some other made up thing" years ago?
The last new refinery built in the United States was Marathan Ashland's Garyville, La., plant and it was completed in 1976. And between 1999 & 2002 refining capacity in the United States rose only 3% while demand continued to squeeze up prices even faster to this day.
They did. How do you think it got to .99 a gallon. There was also more competition in previous years.
It keeps getting better and better.
While the truckers and the average driver cough up more and more... you should check the profit margins of the oil co.s They can orchestrate the flow in order to secure bigger gains. They always have a reason for price hikes every year during the summer months when they know people drive more. I remember in the 70's when people were in line for hours to just get gas. What a pile that was. They are doing the same thing. The truckers should just park it for a few weeks. That will get their attention. Otherwise they will just keep raising prices.
Too bad we let the teamsters destroy the rail transportation system in the US that served us so well for many decades. Not only does it cost more to ship many items by road, but the trucks tear up the highways costing the taxpayers year after year. When we made an interstate move earlier this year, all the movers have a fuel surcharge they now add to the bill.
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