Thank Biden.
Owned by a Pakistani or Indi?
And what does Gropey’s Energy Secretary have to say about all this? “Well, if you drove an electric car, you wouldn’t have to worry about a gas shortage.”
The sheep who let these wolves into the henhouse can all shut the EFF up about high gas prices.
Good, someone who understands basic economics. I bet everyone bought just enough gas for the next couple days.
No more mean tweets from Trump! Yay!
Instead we have a guy who has called a voter a dog-faced pony soldier. Called another voter a “damn liar” and said to another voter “You’re too old to vote for me.”.
But, you know, he’s polite about it. [/s]
I think price gouging is illegal
Fill that barrel at $6.99 a gallon.
The way it works in Florida, a station can’t raise its price until it has received a new allotment of fuel at a higher price. In disasters, a tiny tanker like you’d see on an airfield in the 1940’s runs from station to station pumping 100 gallons and leaving an invoice at the new price.
The business model for a gas station is not to sell gas. Gas is used as the traffic generator for the main sales, in order of importance, cigarettes, beer, food and lottery tickets. The sales on those items beats gas sales by 16:1.
The idea is not to run out of gas. If you leave your price low then you sell out of gas and lose all the associated sales to competitors. They honestly do not care what the price of gas is.
Wife hates it when I explain the evils of anti-price-gouging laws to the kids.
I came to understand the issue when I had to get to work (2 hour drive then), gas stations were dry, and tank had barely enough to get there but not back. Of course everyone will “top off” if supply is limited and price is about normal - leaving nothing for those who NEED it, and high price being fair for their situation.
Higher prices but $6.99/gal sounds like plain price gouging and not making up for higher costs.
Why is anyone still buying BP gas? They are the WORST company on the planet! Of course, gouging customers and playing fast & loose with rules and regulations, HAS caught up with them. Still, people have died and the ocean took a huge hit due to their negligence. Avoid them if you can.
1. BP leads with $29.2 BILLION in fines, mostly after Deepwater Horizon
UK operator BP has received far more fines from US authorities than any other oil and gas company. The company’s $29.2bn of settlements leave it as the third most-fined company, surrounded on the list by banks. The only other member of the top 10 that is not a bank is Volkswagen, due to its manipulation of vehicle emissions testing.
Most of BP’s payments stem from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, in which a Gulf of Mexico platform caught fire following a blowout and sank. The resulting oil spill covered approximately 180,000 km² of the Gulf of Mexico. The spill reached the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. There, locals were saw their beaches contaminated and wild birds suffering in the oil.
As a direct result, BP received seven of the 10 largest fines ever given to oil and gas companies by US authorities. The largest of these was a $20.8bn fine given by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2015. This marks the largest single environmental fine ever recorded.
In 2020, one decade after the original spill, BP accounted more than $11bn of payables related to the oil spill.
In the same year as Deepwater Horizon, BP agreed to pay the largest logged fine for health and safety violations. These related to the Texas City Refinery explosion, where 15 workers died in a vapour cloud fire. A BP investigation stated that these vapours likely ignited when coming into contact with a vehicle engine.
The company had previously received warnings that the lack of flares could lead to hazardous gas accumulations.
BP Products North America agreed to pay $50.6m, but contested more than $30m of the proposed fine. It also paid “generous”, undisclosed sums to the families of those who died. BP later sold the refinery to Marathon Petroleum, which is now bound by the same settlement BP made.
Gotta pay off that $5 million ransom
I was supposed to fly home on 9/11.
Ended up with quite a drive.
Got my car at the airport. It needed gas.
Figured I’d fill up on the way home.
Every gas station was empty.
I found one station out of town that still had premium.
The place was packed.
I live in a small Midwestern city.
There was a guy there who was filling up a 55 gallon drum.
I went inside to pay and I hollered out “They didn’t hit any fuel lines. What are you people doing?”
Silence.
Too many scary movies I guess.
If no one was looking at the price, where did this story come from?
*Sigh.*
There is no such thing as price “gouging”.
Is anyone being forced to buy it?
It is short-time supply & demand.
A commodity is becoming scarce. It will probably also be in high demand. Both situations imply increasing the price.
OT1H, this keeps customers who are just panicked, from hoarding, and makes it more likely to get into the hands of people who really need it - they find it very valuable, and maybe the hoarders don’t.
OTOH, this gives the supplier a chance to make the same money as he would in normal times, over some given amount of time. Because he will likely run out of commodity - and at “regular” prices or only slightly raised, will run out very quickly.
Keep the prices as is, then he soon has nothing to offer, and he also doesn’t know if he’ll have income for that near future.
If no one likes the price, he can lower it again.
There was a large black woman complaining about the $6.99/gal on TV last night. Couldn’t help but wonder who she voted for.
Daily Prices
Daily wholesale and retail prices for various energy products are shown below, including spot prices and select futures prices at national or regional levels. Prices are updated each weekday (excluding federal holidays), typically between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. This page is meant to provide a snapshot of selected daily prices only. Prices are republished by EIA with permission as follows: Wholesale Spot Petroleum Prices from Refinitiv, Retail Petroleum Prices from AAA Fuel Gauge Report, Prompt-Month Energy Futures from CME Group, and Select Spot Prices from SNL Energy.
Wholesale Spot Petroleum Prices, 5/12/21 Close
Product Area Price Percent
Change*
Crude Oil
($/barrel) WTI 65.96 +1.0
Brent 69.62 +1.1
Louisiana Light 67.96 +1.1
Gasoline (RBOB)
($/gallon) NY Harbor 2.16 +0.9
Gulf Coast 2.09 +0.4
Los Angeles 2.26 +0.4
Heating Oil
($/gallon) NY Harbor 1.88 +1.3
Gulf Coast 1.77 +3.3
3:2:1 Crack Spread
($/barrel) Gulf Coast (LLS) 18.95 -0.7
Low-Sulfur Diesel
($/gallon) NY Harbor 2.08 +1.3
Gulf Coast 2.02 +1.5
Los Angeles 2.09 +0.8
Propane
($/gallon) Mont Belvieu, TX 0.81 +1.1
Retail Petroleum Prices (AAA), 5/12/21 ($/gallon)
Regular Gasoline U.S. Average NA NA
Diesel U.S. Average NA NA
Prompt-Month Energy Futures, 5/12/21 Settlement
Product Price Percent
Change* Volume Prior Day
Open Interest
Crude Oil ($/barrel) - Nymex Jun 66.08 +1.2 543 261
Gasoline-RBOB ($/gallon) - Nymex Jun 2.16 +1.0 98 109
Heating Oil ($/gallon) - Nymex Jun 2.07 +1.4 82 91
Natural Gas ($/million Btu) - Nymex Jun 2.97 +0.5 98 166
Coal ($/ton) - Nymex NA NA NA NA
Ethanol ($/gallon) - CBOT NA NA NA NA
Notes for Prompt-Month Energy Futures
Select Spot Prices for Delivery Today
Region Natural Gas
($/million Btu) Electricity
($/MWh) Spark
Spread
($/MWh)
Price Percent
Change* Price Percent
Change*
New England 2.30 -3.0 26.28 +3.5 10.18
New York City 2.25 -8.8 25.56 -4.8 9.82
Mid-Atlantic 2.25 -8.6 29.18 -3.4 13.43
Midwest 2.78 -0.1 31.95 +10.4 12.47
Louisiana 2.91 0.0 29.75 +8.2 9.42
Houston 2.92 -2.6 30.00 -10.4 9.55
Southwest 2.71 -2.9 33.75 -20.1 14.77
Southern CA 2.92 +0.1 33.50 -3.9 13.06
Northern CA 4.07 +2.9 40.97 -15.0 12.45
Northwest 2.78 -0.3 41.00 -22.2 21.54
*Percent changes based on daily settlement price from previous business day.
NA = Data was not available at time of retrieval. Percent Change column will display NA if data from previous day was not retrieved.
Sources: CME Group, Refinitiv, SNL Energy, AAA Fuel Gauge Report
Gasoline does have an orange tint to it. Hence it is bad.
I suppose people with trunks full of gas cans to fill, in addition to their vehicle....will now stop.
...so people who REALLY NEEDED gas could get it there, and people who wanted to hoard gas could wait in line for hours at other gas stations.
Sounds like win-win to me.