How much does government intervention and regulation play in to this?
I forgot: Obama’s Fault.
Supply and Demand.
Diesel was forced higher by the expensive to refine ULSD mandate ...
How much is heating oil demands weighing on the total ...
don’t worry about the price of gas...”the one” will be buying it for everyone shortly..(I WISH that was sarcasm)
Because the wholesale cost of crude is only a tiny fraction of the entire expense that goes into gasoline production. With a $.05 to $.10 profit on each gallon, there is very little downward wiggle room if that one piece of the expense pie drops.
The green uber liberals now in charge of the country know that the stupid American bitter clinging sheeple won’t accept “alternative energy” if gas is “cheap”
Expect total silence from the democrats and expect their buddies to make sure gas gets back up to $4 a gallon- or more
Complainers will be labeled as selfish and short sighted
This noose being tightened slowly around our necks is for our own long term good and for the planet, don’cha know
s-a-r-c
Obama’s administration cancelled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah a couple of weeks back, and they have stated that they are going to review offshore drilling policy on the east and west coasts. That can’t help.
Personally, I’m not complaining.
I’ll take 2.00 a gallon over 4.00 a gallon any day!
Which causes me to ask two questions: First, in what way does their behavior differ from OPEC's? Second, what good would it have done to have additional refinery capacity on line?
The answer to both questions is "None, whatsoever".
Its not yours to question, serf.
You just pay whatever we tell you to pay!!!!
Get that man’s papers!!!!
That's a darn big gas tank. Split the difference at $12.50. At $0.40 more/gal, thats over a 30-gallon tank. Guy goes through almost 100 gallons of gas a week.
Is he represenative of all drivers? Not really.
I put about 10 gallons a week in my car. I'm not happy about the extra $4.00/wk or so, but neither is it going to bankrupt me. And I think that I'm fairly represenative of most other people on this.
But, I suppose "Customer pays extra $4.00/wk for gas, is mildly annoyed" doesn't sell many papers.
It happens every Spring, and every year people seem surprised by it.
Oil for spot delivery in Cushing OK, the benchmark for a big futures contract, is low because of a storage shortage at the pipe head. Elsewhere, crude oil has been going sideways in the $40-$45 range.
It’s taxes, in California.
“Refined-product prices were way underpriced relative to the cost of crude oil. The refiners were losing money,” said Bryant Gimlin, energy risk manager for Gray Oil, a fuel wholesale marketer based in Fort Lupton.
BS!
Wow, what this means is that oil and refining companies really only have the best interest of the oil and refining company's at heart and that they'll do anything to manipulate the price to reap a profit?? Who'd of thunk it???
You'll have to customize it but Gasbuddy has a chart here.
The chart shows local pump prices and crude futures which can be deceptive but still if the trend had held but locally gas should have been north of $6 last summer.
So I'd rather pay less than $1.70 but on the other hand I'd rather pay $1.70 than not be able to get any (ala the 70s).
Question: Given that Amendment X of the Constitution reserves rights not specifically delegated to the government to the people, then couldn’t we just build our own Refineries, and then when the wackos come, shoot them in defense of our private properties?
Here’s my over-simplified (and possibly mistaken) understanding of it:
The oil and gasoline industries are seperate. Each has an effect on the other, but they are not the same.
Worldwide monetary supply has increased as a result of globalism. That dollar you hold in your hand has competition from everybody else in the world who wants a gallon of gas. In a world of perfectly elastic supply, that would be fine.
Oil supply is not perfectly elastic. OPEC is one problem. Then there’s recovery - producers have to spend more to find and develop new reserves. So it costs more to produce. The law of diminishing returns kicking in.
Then market speculation enters the picture. Traders drove futures through the roof. Now we have tankers full of the stuff sitting around and nobody wants to sell because they paid more than they can sell it to the refiners for. Nobody wants to buy from them now because futures are down. We have an oil glut.
When oil prices increase, the cost of inputs for gasoline production increase as well. The price was increased which had a downward effect on demand. Demand for gasoline is not static. Prices had to be kept lower than they should to keep it from cratering. This means that less money was available for capital improvement (refineries & delivery capacity). Less capital improvement over time acts as a restriction on supply.
Partly because of the law of diminishing returns and partly due to environmental regs, it is more cost-efficient for corporations to build refinery capacity in other countries. Therefore refinery capacity has been built overseas instead of here.
So right now, we are paying for the twin problems of an oil glut and reduced refinery capacity. It’s being offset somewhat for now by a global recession. Once the global recession is over, prices will go back through the roof.
Our economy will take a hit relative to everyone else because we consume tons of oil and gas per unit of GDP, global demand will go up, and the law of diminishing returns is not on our side.