[ontap]

Neither oil companies,politicians,gas station owners or anyone else can do anything about what our Arab FRIENDS are charging for a barrel of oil. At present they have us over that barrel.I’m not saying that the oil cos. aren’t taking advantage of it but the largest part of the price of gas is $65.00 crude and taxes and that’s where we need to direct most of our concern.

[Captain Rhino]

Let me take advantage of your mention of cost per barrel to post some information to give a little perspective to the current angst over gasoline prices:

Gallons in a barrel of oil: 42

Percent of barrel able to be converted to gasoline: ≈ 51.4%

Current (23 May 2007) cost of a barrel of oil (Brent crude on the spot market): $70

(As noted in other posts, oil companies who own their own oil will have lower purchase/production prices. This price could be considered current market value of inventory or replacement cost.)

Cost per gallon of spot market feeder stock: $1.67 ($70/42)

Current cost per gallon (regular unleaded) at my location (suburban Northern Virginia): $3.07

Per gallon amount allocated to TAXES (combination of federal and weighted average state gasoline taxes): $ 0.39

Per gallon amount allocated to crude transportation, refining, pipeline distribution, road distribution, retail marketing (no profit) on my gallon of regular unleaded yesterday: $ 0.83

Oil company profit margin: 5.9%

(Average profit margin for all U.S. manufacturing is 5.2%. Electronic products profit margin is almost 20%. At the other end, grocery stores have an after taxes profit margin of 1.46%.)

Oil company profit at 5.9% on my gallon of regular unleaded yesterday: $0.18.

Oil company profit at 5.2% on my gallon of regular unleaded yesterday: $0.16.

Barrels of gasoline consumed each day in the United States: 9.4 million

Gallon equivalent: 394.8 million gallons/day (9.4 million barrels/day x 42 gallons/barrel)

The bottom line: The reason the oil companies are making "a lot of profit" is because they are moving a lot of product, all day, every day to keep Americans moving.