Posted on 04/08/2019 5:25:45 PM PDT by John W
A consortium of oil-producing countries has taken more than a million barrels a day off the market and thats the least of the problems plaguing American gasoline prices.
Across the U.S., regular gas averaged $2.77 a gallon, up 7 cents on the week and 29 cents on the month, according to GasBuddy. Last year, gas prices topped out at $2.98 at the outset of Memorial Day weekend.
Oil prices are climbing, but that only accounts for about one-quarter of the recently higher gas prices American drivers have been facing. A bigger issue is that this is around the time of year when many oil refineries plan maintenance as they make their annual switch to summer-blend fuels.
This year, unexpected issues took a higher number of refineries offline, squeezing supplies. This laundry list of refinery issues, both planned and unplanned, is having a dramatic impact on prices, GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis Patrick DeHaan said. Its almost inevitable every year that there will be a refinery issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
What the usa needs is to stop forcing certain areas to have certain blends due to ‘environmental’ requirements.
If they stopped forcing these places to also only have ethanol gas, ie crap gas, they would instantly measurably improve and reduce groundwater pollution.
Because of these mandates, some places only have one refinery for a wide geographic area across seveeal states. this has a dramatic impact on gas prices.
John I travel from Paso Robles to Santa Barbara almost on a daily basis. Highest price noticed for gas was $4.25 Paso & SLO and lowest $3.26 Lompoc. My vehicle get approx. 16 mpg which equates roughly to .23 cents/mile if gas is $3.69. So, I paid a whopping $73 and traveled 320 miles OUCH.
Think I’m going to buy and wear a yellow vest to protest high gas prices, like they are doing in France.
One way to badly hurt the economy/nation, hit working families with $4/gallon gas prices.
Nothing left over from a paycheck after food, gas, mortgage/rent, and medical costs.
I’m glad there is Final Justice coming from heaven one day.
That's $64 million per day that our enemies are not collecting.
Also, as the price goes up, more fracking capacity comes on line. This will tend to bring the price down.
As others have noted, many, many states have increased their gas taxes recently.
Gasbuddy says you can get gas here for $2.99
Here being the Reno that is the biggest little city in the world. Not that other place in Texas...
Maybe. One of the issues here is that vertically integrated companies have great leeway to make some segments of the operation profitable and others less so by pricing the materials transferred from one part to another.
For generations oil companies have pushed profits into crude oil production and made refining less profitable. Probably because of tax treatment, the depletion allowance.
Anyway, the biggest profiteer at the gas station is the government, as you have noted.
Something tells me even the unplanned is planned by somebody higher up... Pretty hard to believe it is accidental when it happens every year. They know exactly what they are doing when it comes to controlling gas prices, all it takes is a manufactured crisis.
Nah. We won’t see what happened in 2007-2008 again. Now this nation is energy independent. We weren’t 11-12 years ago. If Saudi Arabia takes another million barrels off the market, it’ll just encourage oil companies to produce more oil from shale oil sources in North Dakota and Texas.
Agree with you SAM.
At least two new refineries are under construction in Texas. I think one is in West Texas and the other in Baytown.
True, but US is running at peak capacity. That much oil just isn’t developed overnight. It takes years to develop that much additional capacity.
As it is, we’re approaching peak refining capacity. The industry is running at 85%, which given maintenance and down time requirements doesn’t leave much on the upside.
We should be building more refineries. And nuclear power plants. Oh, who am I kidding. The only people who look further down the road than a year are the Congress. And they just use ten years to make the first year of expense in a new program artificially low so as not the scare the horses.
I thought we were building more refineries.
And then you have the electric cars.
If it reaches $4, I think it will be short lived.
The solution to high prices is high prices.
You can only hold huge amounts of oil off the market for so long before the buildup of reserves grows so large that it forces the price down as rapidly as it went up.
I never understood how it works.
Suppose the refinery is a black box that charges a dollar to turn a gallon of crude into gasoline. Then the Saudis have a panic attack and the price of crude doubles. The refiners then report record earnings.
Why? It still costs only a dollar to refine. If they just passed the increased cost of the crude along in the price of gasoline, their profits would remain the same. Whence the record profits?
Your theory in post #22 may very well be true.
I was reading yesterday on the internet that 12% of vehicle owners who have FINANCED their vehicle are now NINETY DAYS or MORE in arrears with their payments.
Elevated gas prices only worsen that situation.
Last fall I was paying $1.79 to $2.01 a gallon.
It'll happen again... TRUMP may even cause it to fall by altering regulations further or through an executive order which accomplishes that.
If gasoline prices at the pump cause too much agony for the American public TRUMP will act.
You’re dealing with an abundance of “what ifs”
They should get rid of the “summer blend” fuels once and for all.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.