Replies

Yep. Blame the oil companies, shut 'em down, torch the refineries, and then burn your furniture to keep warm this winter.

I clearly identified government as the major culprit in my post, if you would reread it. However, I think the majority of Americans will blame both equally. This would be a PR disaster for any company.

Natural gas will be more expensive this winter, so will fuel oil. Part of the pressure on Natural Gas is directly from the conversion of coal and oil fired power plants to burn natural gas to comply with environmental regulations.

Yep. And Republicans are in charge and are doing nothing to reverse this. Sad.

Fuel oil and diesel are in short supply, because refinery operations have been interrupted.

It's why we need more refineries. I doubt the government or the oil industry want them much yet, however, because both make tons of money when the supply is "interrupted."

No one is factoring the cost of shutting down a production platform, not having product to deliver to market, the cost of shutting down and restarting a refinery, or any of that lost revenue, oh no, they are all whining about what? $60.00 a month in increased fuel costs? Less than the cost of dinner and drinks, less than the cost of a night at Bingo for Grandma, but only three hours wages for a worm roughneck in these parts.

Yes, the devastating costs to the oil industry are certainly apparent in the loss they all posted yesterday. Let's shed a tear for them, shall we?

Where are you getting the $60 a month figure? I bet most people are paying that much more in gasoline alone, not including natural gas this winter.

If the orange crop gets wiped out by the weather, the price goes up, and people use less.

People are not forced to buy oranges. People are forced to buy energy.

If you did not want to pay that much, you found a way to use less, be it orange juice, gasoline, or heating fuels.

I know you work for an oil company, but even you can't be so blind to see that this argument is not accurate. On any given day, I can choose not to have a glass of orange juice. I cannot choose not to heat my house or to not drive to work, or not to buy any goods such as foods that are transported using energy.

Keep in mind that this has been done despite the loving ministrations of the environmental lobby, government, and endless litigation to PREVENT the construction of refineries and drilling domestic areas with high production potential.

Totally true. Why aren't Republicans getting out of the way? Because they are the same as dems. But that's another argument.

(BTW, I'm just waiting for the hellraising against "BIG CHICKEN" if the bird flu gets into America's poultry flocks. All the torchbearers will be marching on the eeeevil Tyson, Swanson, KFC, etc. for charging "too much".)

I can choose not to buy chicken. I cannot choose not to buy energy below a certain level.

For starters, everyone seems to use the unusually (and unsustainably) low oil prices of the late '90s as a benchmark, and secondly, the oil industry has to replace reserves as they are depleted, continuously.

Investment is required to locate prospects, evaluate prospects, lease mineral rights, acquire permits and post reclamation bonds, all long before the well is even spudded. So you won't immediately see the effects of reinvestment.

I already told you how sorry we were for those 3 months in 1999 when gas was 90 cents a gallon. Must we pay for the rest of our lives for those 3 months? Surely you have at least broken even by now, right? I know 3 months of cheap gas is almost impossible to recover from, but maybe you guys can spread around that 9 billion dollars you made this quarter.

If all the permits, etc. were granted to build a new refinery today, with local support and no environmentalists involved suing to stop construction, it would still take 10 years for the facility to come on line.

And also it's in the best interest of the government and oil companies to have supply choked as much and for as long as possible.

So how many lawyers are taking pay cuts out there? There is an obvious glut of shysters on the market, but I haven't seen any price wars there.

Boy, you just love this argument, no matter how false it is. I'll explain it one more time : most Americans every day can choose not to have a lawyer. Almost none can choose not to buy energy or goods transported using energy. That's why we are pissed. We can't cut consumption below a certain level. So we have to pay whatever you guys charge, and the government gets an even bigger cut.

In the meantime, every other industry in the country charges what the market will bear, and no one is griping about it (with the exception of the drug companies, which must invest a lot to see any return on what they put out up front, too).

See, now you are starting to get it. If I don't heat my house, I freeze to death. If I don't get medicine for an illness, I die. People tend to get a little pissed when you play "what the market will bear/inelastic demand" with a product necessary to sustain life.

See, now you are starting to get it. If I don't heat my house, I freeze to death. If I don't get medicine for an illness, I die. People tend to get a little pissed when you play "what the market will bear/inelastic demand" with a product necessary to sustain life.

I think I get it. Plasma TV: justifiable. New car every three years: justifiable. Latest whatever?: justifiable as long as it is not necessity.

Necessities go up in price, cartwheeling sh!tfit.

As for controlling how much you use, you would be amazed how much you can, but people don't want to live upstairs from where they work. They want to live in overpriced (my opinion) 4000 square ft. McMansions 40 miles from work and drive back and forth in four wheel drive vehicles that never leave pavement. That set of choices determines their energy needs to a massive degree. Different choices, different needs, you pays your money and takes your choice.

As for the actions of the Republican Congress, I am bitterly disappointed in their general lack of progress on numerous fronts, and feel they must either be seriously compromised by the content of Hillary's 900+ FBI files, or have sold out to popular opinion as expressed by the leftist media.

As for three months in 1999, oil has been underpriced for a long time, especially if you were to index the price to that of the vehicle it goes into.

Either people pay a realistic price which will sustain continued development or the industry will continue to move in a boom/bust cycle, as it has for the past three decades. Product prices, which support refinery bids for crude oil, which support exploration and development, will continue to roller-coaster. That money is made in the trading pits and on the stock market.

I, for one, would welcome the concept of stable and sustained activity, simply because it translates to sustained employment.