Posted on 04/26/2006 6:35:00 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
Okay, I have seen a LOT of threads claiming that oil companies aren't really making that much on each gallon of gasoline.
Oh, really? (blink, blink) Then explain the record profits by the oil companies.
Why sure. First, US oil companies don't import all of their oil. In fact several companies actually import very little. Where do they get it? Why, from wells on private and federal land that they drilled on years and years ago. What is the extraction cost to get it out of these wells? You can be darned sure that it is nowhere near $75 a barrel. In fact, I read that it is somewhere around $7 to $15 a barrel. Add to this cost a small royalty that they pay the federal government or private land owner and refining and transportation cost and you come up with maybe $25 a barrel.
Now, mix in the oil they bought 3 or 4 months ago at $52 a barrel that is just now coming to the refinery and you have an average of between $25 and $40 a barrel.
So what we have is huge profits at the expense of the consumer. How long will it last? The prices will start to drop once they feel they are starting to harm the economy. Congress and the media and the consumers stop bothering them and they look for the next opportunity to do it all over again.
He could save it, like the rest of us have to when we want to buy something...
So gasoline should become a govenment entitlement?
I am watching' the gas prices everyday driving to and from work, and I kid you not, for the passed three days gas prices went up at an average of 3-5 cents a day nice and steady!
Saturday June 22nd ARCO at $2.97/ UNOCAL at $2.98; today ARCO at $3.17/ UNOCAL at $3.19.
Now can anybody lecture me what happened between June 22nd and June 25th? We did not have any Hurricanes in the Gulf, the Saudis are in one piece, so what is the reason for jacking up the prices? Ahhh the vacation time is coming, we have to add the ethanol, perform a smell test, geeez Charlie forgot to turn the MTSB spigot on, therefore let's stick it to them, huh!
I am asking myself, what exactly has had happened since 04/25/05 to justify the oil prices to jump almost $1.30 a gallon! I am not aware of any major interruption of oil supply anywhere, at least we were not told by the media.
You know what the summer will bring?...$4 Gallon of fuel, that's what will bring.
40 billion profits AFTER taxes?? Awwww poor little darlings
To bad so sad about taxes they have to pay!
It's amazing to me, staggering really, how ignorant most folks are about the laws of economics. People who readily get that that oranges don't fall up, even if some politician orders them to, uncritically expect similarly impossible real-world behavior when economics is involved.
I blame the educational system to some degree, but here on Free Republic, nobody should expect a pass on the basis that they spent 12 years in the clutches of the Teacher's Union.
I don't know how often I've seen plugs for Tom Sowell's "Basic Economics" and "Applied Economics" on these threads - but it's been often. But here is another one from me. These DU refugees that have gone all squigee on gas prices ought to check out these two very readable volumes and see if they can get their heads screwed back on straight.
No I posted that, I used $1.00 a gal as an example, to show a financial relationship between raw materials and operating costs, and normal business O & P parameters and the petroleum parameters.
Now you post your credentials, telling me and US about you knowledge of the Petroleum Industry, if you can't; take you crap and go back to DU.
I laid out an industry standard financial process that I can back up with anything you need. Matter of fact. Print my post out and bring it to you local gas station, A**Hole and ask him.
We seem to have come to the conclusion somehow that cheap gasoline is a guaranteed birthright somewhere in our bill of rights.
We saw how the price controls on electricity worked so well to keep the power on in California.
It is a self regulating system. Do you want cheap gas that no one has any to sell, or do you want to pay the market price that has not failed to keep the gas flowing into your car and our economy?
Regulated prices = No gas, rationed gas.
Most of us are not willing buyers...We have no choice...The competition has been bought off...This is not a free market situation and no, I don't support it...
Practically...And who's oil is it anyway, the gov'ts', or the people's???
Are you one of those people who think oil companies set the price for oil? If so, go to the looney bin. If not, you can be educated.
Listen, you aren't going to be able to do much about these prices because if you won't pay, someone in Poland or Japan will, and the petroloum products will go there.
The most effective thing you can do, and I've done it a lot, is to find two gas stations is sight of one another where one is charging a cent or two more than the other, drive in to the higher price station and ask to see the man in charge.
Then tell him in a matter of fact voice, that you are about to leave his station and drive to the nearby station, and make sure he understands why. If enough drivers do this, maybe we can keep pressure on prices.
But, the fact is that despite all the handwringing and cries of pain, most folks continue to drive into whatever gas station inspires them and fill 'er up. Oil companies know this, and so does the government.
The ironic thing is that now that Democrats finally have managed to get what they have been clamoring and struggling for - for years - high energy prices, especially, high fuel prices, they are trying to use this against Republicans.
You don't have any idea what you are talking about.
The executives of the company have a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders to maximize return on investment. If they knowingly do anything else, they are violating securities laws. Greed has nothing to do with it.
It is the capitalist system. It applies to McDonalds, WalMart, Home Depot and the Day Care down the street.
It is the system that puts a roof over your head and food on your table. If you can find a better system anywhere in the world, share the knowledge with us because we would all love to know.
It sure is. It's just a bigger market than you are considering, in fact it's a worldwide market. And you had better beleive that it is subject to market forces. And you are part of it. Unless you don't want gas anymore, you are going to have to get in line with billions of other buyers and prepare to be outbid.
I'm on fire now. I worked at a car wash in 1974 for $1.61 per hr. US minimum wage and gasoline was $0.31 a gal.
That would be nationalization.
The market doesn't care if you support it or not. If you don't support the market, you would not consume gasoline now would you?
That chart is completely accurate. Just because you want a different reality doesn't make it exist.
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