Posted on 02/16/2007 9:16:23 AM PST by AnnaZ
Thu Feb 15, 2:19 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The first "terror-free" gas station was inaugurated this week in Omaha, Nebraska aiming to send a message to Middle Eastern oil producers thought to sponsor terrorism. The station in the central US state greets customers with large "terror-free" signs and the pumps proudly proclaim that the oil being drawn is "terror-free premium" or "terror-free super."
Messages plastered inside the station's convenience store drive home the message that it only sells oil from Canada and the United States and supports the war on terror.
"We know that when we go to the pumps we are sending our hard-earned dollars to a part of the world that wishes to destroy us," Joe Kaufman, who is behind the "Terror-Free Oil Initiative" (TFO) which runs the station, told AFP.
The TFO logo combines the twin towers of the New York City World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and designations for United Airlines flight 93 and three other aircraft which were hijacked and crashed into those buildings in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"We created this initiative to make a statement to those gasoline companies that purchase their crude oil in the Middle East, that we as Americans are sick and tired of financing our own demise," Kaufman said.
He said his grass roots movement encourages stations that sign on to TFO to purchase their oil from Sinclair Oil Corporation, which generally only buys oil from the US and Canada.
Kaufman said he is well aware he is unlikely to make the major oil companies budge on imports from other producers, but is convinced that more gas stations throughout the country will join his movement in coming months.
"We're not under any illusion that we're going to make a dent in the oil market or in the oil or gasoline business, but we're just trying to make a statement," he said. "We believe in the war on terrorism and we're doing our small part as Americans to fight that war."
There is no link to be had. This is theoretical economics (teh effect of a boycott on a nearly perfectly competitive product) mixed with knowledge of the oil industry (I worked in corporate finance at a $10 billion + oil company.)
A guy named Osama grows grain in Kansas. After he harvests his grain, he sells it to the local grain tower. 100 other farmers sell to this same local tower, and all the grain gets mixed together.
Along comes Kellogs. They buy up all the grain from this tower, as well as towers all over the midwest, and they mix it all up together. So Osamas grain is mixed up with the grain of tens of thousands of others. Kellog makes wheaties with this grain.
Later, Osama blows up a building. Kellog's announces "we've never bought any grain from Osama, our cereal is Osama free!"
They have never written Osama a check, but they have no way of knowing one way or another if Osamas grain is in their cereal.
The same is largley the case with Crude Oil. It gets all jumbled together in the midstream and downstrem processes, and there is really no way to say where the gasoline in your tank comes from.
Thanks
I was trying to read the pump instructions or whatever that appears to be a flow chart.....
Nice tag BTW
I've heard that some do, or did... I'd like the fed and state taxes posted in comparison to the profit percentage that goes to the oil company. It'd shut up Hilliary Chavez PDQ.
= )
You could, theoretically. You could only buy oil from say Chesapeke energy, and own your own refinery and demand that it go through some small refinery where you know what is going on. The problem is that your total distributions costs would be higher than your competitors and you would then go out of business. Now, even if you did that, it still wouldn't really harm the arabs all that much, because they would sell the oil elsewhere, you would need the whole world in on it.
Which brings us back to my original analogy -- I realize the Chinese, for example, have no qualms enriching the Saudis or Iranians or Chavez, but we shouldn't if we can avoid it. Sure, the sheikhs will stay rich, but I'd really rather it not be with the help of our money.
I'm waiting for the "Mo Ham 'n Eggs" special slam breakfast at Denny's.
Yep, Sinclair gas. Nope, no relation.
Mark
I remember playing with a toy dinosaur that we got from Sinclair when I was a little boy.
Mark
I love old stuff. I just don't love seeing toys I played with as a kid in antique shops.
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