Your chart is skewed. Refining costs are nowhere near 22% (comes out to roughly 53 cents a gallon). Refining costs are more or less constant. Remember a few years ago when gas was selling for 80 cents/gal? The oil companies AND the retailers were making a profit while taxes were 40 cents on a gallon! That means that total production and distribution costs were about 25 cents a gallon.
Your chart is skewed. Refining costs are nowhere near 22% (comes out to roughly 53 cents a gallon). Refining costs are more or less constant. Remember a few years ago when gas was selling for 80 cents/gal? The oil companies AND the retailers were making a profit while taxes were 40 cents on a gallon! That means that total production and distribution costs were about 25 cents a gallon.
I remember. That was when oil companies were going bankrupt or seeking mergers to survive.
That was when the companies in Alaska were producing oil at a net loss, but to shut the wells in would have killed them.
That was when there weren't any profits and only losses, but armchair economists like you never noticed.
You were still bitching that gasoline was 27 cents a gallon like it was when you were a kid.
That chart is completely accurate. Just because you want a different reality doesn't make it exist.
"Your chart is skewed. Refining costs are nowhere near 22%"
Not my chart. The Department of Energy's chart.
Remember a few years ago when cars cost $12,000? And average salaries were $30,000 or so?
Who do you think works for oil companies and invests in oil companies? The people who make $75,000 and buy $30,000 cars. How are they supposed to be paid today? Remember, there are over 600,000 of them just connected to the top company.