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CVO Social => Off Topic => Topic started by: JCZ on July 18, 2015, 03:42:26 PM
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I can still get diesel for $2.99 a gal. at a Chevron near my work.
But this is what I paid in downtown San Diego today.....a Union 76 station near San Diego Harley Davidson....
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We may not have the best roads, best weather, and any/everything else.... but.... we do beat your fuel prices. ;) :D :D
:pumpkin:
Ride Safe,
Fired00d
:fireman:
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What's going on in California to cause that JC? That's almost double the price in the Midwest.
Jerry
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San Diego has been in the top 5 cities in the US for quite a while for gas prices. Unfortunately we also make the top list of quite a few things for most expensive as well as hardest state in the country to run a business, pay taxes, etc. We often refer to it as "the peoples republic of California"
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What's going on in California to cause that JC? That's almost double the price in the Midwest.
Jerry
Gas prices shot up over $ .75 a gal. in four days here, this past week. The media always goes to the refineries and asks and it's always a bunch of weak excuses Jerry. In my opinion it's nothing more than conspiracy and price fixing. Every year, for many years they've made record profits yet they keep claiming it's due to the cost of rebuilding the refineries or one refinery is down for routine maintenance, etc.
I mean we all know that Calif. has the highest gas taxes in the nation but that doesn't account for the serious fluctuation. It goes through the roof almost over night but yet wholesale prices have dropped $ .20 a gallon in the last 24 hours but it hasn't dropped at the pumps. It always goes up very fast and comes back down very slow.
But just like Harleys.......we have nobody to blame but ourselves because we keep buying it.
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Geez, I filled up this morning in the cage for $2.39 and just a little bit ago on the bike for $2.82. Saw a wire article a couple days ago about CA prices spiking again but didn't pay much attention to the details. That's painful.
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What's going on in California to cause that JC? That's almost double the price in the Midwest.
Jerry
:-\ You can get a different slant on the reasons for much higher gas prices in California by reviewing an article in todays Wall Street Journal (Sat/Sun--7/18-19). While the current national average is $2.76 a gallon, in California it's $3.88.
"Since 1999, when Demo...Gray Davis became governor, California gas prices has surpassed the national average principally due to more stringent fuel regulations............due to State and federal environmental mandates, several smaller, inefficient refineries in Calif. have shut down over the past two decades. Only 14 refineries in Calif. produce the states "pristine" burning fuel, and most operate at nearly full capacity to stay cost-effective...............blah, blah, blah.
Thank environmental "wacko" billionaire Tom Steyer and his fellow liberal friends in Sacremento for these anti-carbon regulations promoted by a cartel of "green activists and liberal politicians aimed at raising energy costs to discourage consumption.
So, back in 2006, Californians were paying 23 cents more than the national average. This disparity increased to 40 cnets in 2014 and now sits at $1.11. :drink:
So there you have the PROBLEM, it is not as many want to believe that the refineries are screwing the public. Very few refineries outside the state of Calif. blend the gas for Calif. reformulated fuel...........thus a refinerie breakdown, means those others cannot make up the slack and prices explode. :nixweiss:
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I paid 2.95 for Premium yesterday in Maryland. It has gone up about 2 months ago but it is finally starting to fall.
Be Safe
THE DAWG
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:-\ You can get a different slant on the reasons for much higher gas prices in California by reviewing an article in todays Wall Street Journal (Sat/Sun--7/18-19). While the current national average is $2.76 a gallon, in California it's $3.88.
"Since 1999, when Demo...Gray Davis became governor, California gas prices has surpassed the national average principally due to more stringent fuel regulations............due to State and federal environmental mandates, several smaller, inefficient refineries in Calif. have shut down over the past two decades. Only 14 refineries in Calif. produce the states "pristine" burning fuel, and most operate at nearly full capacity to stay cost-effective...............blah, blah, blah.
Thank environmental "wacko" billionaire Tom Steyer and his fellow liberal friends in Sacremento for these anti-carbon regulations promoted by a cartel of "green activists and liberal politicians aimed at raising energy costs to discourage consumption.
So, back in 2006, Californians were paying 23 cents more than the national average. This disparity increased to 40 cnets in 2014 and now sits at $1.11. :drink:
So there you have the PROBLEM, it is not as many want to believe that the refineries are screwing the public. Very few refineries outside the state of Calif. blend the gas for Calif. reformulated fuel...........thus a refinerie breakdown, means those others cannot make up the slack and prices explode. :nixweiss:
While this lends explanation to the high gas taxes, it doesn't address the extreme swing in fuel costs. Escalating $ .75 in just a week is a record increase and even though the wholesale cost has gone back down $ 20. a gallon, it doesn't explain why it's stayed at record levels at the pump.
Lately, each time it's escalated there's been an outcry for investigation into the oil companies and price fixing. As I mentioned above, every time the prices increase the oil companies cry maintenance costs yet they continue to make record profits year after year and those profit percentages also climb each year.
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I haven't filled up in a few days but I paid $4.85 for regular unleaded in Redondo Beach. They tax the hell out of our gas in Ca.
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Mustang Week this week in Myrtle Beach, SC.
We were there.
http://www.mustangweek.com/news/showarticle.php?articleID=33
Regular 2.19, got to keep the 03GT happy so I filled up @2.66 for premium.
Rock-n-Roll, Mustangs were everywhere!
SBB
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So the oil companies have entered into a conspiracy to inflate gas prices in only San Diego or perhaps California? A conspiracy that would have to involve thousands of people...and not one word has leaked out. I'd say San Diego gas prices have more to do with California's political and environmental climate.
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Spot on Mark, Just got back from the West. Best prices were in NM.....$2.32 for diesel for truck, $2.89 for premium for the world's fastest SERK
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$2.89 for premium for the world's fastest SERK
It's Blue of course!
:2vrolijk_21:
SBB
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So the oil companies have entered into a conspiracy to inflate gas prices in only San Diego or perhaps California? A conspiracy that would have to involve thousands of people...and not one word has leaked out. I'd say San Diego gas prices have more to do with California's political and environmental climate.
Yes, I believe it's due to a combination of oil company "disciplined marketing" (aka price fixing) and Calif's political and environmental climate. The record profits year after year after year is not just in California. The fact that we pay so much more than anywhere else in the nation is Calif's political/environmental climate.
The high prices compared to the rest of the nation is Calif's political/envriomental climate. The huge fluctations in prices is the oil companies. What's really interesting is that Calif. has many, many oil wells and refineries but go to the surrounding states that don't have either oil wells or refineries and they don't have the huge fluctuations. :nixweiss:
By the way.....and a whole other topic.....California's environmental climate has a trickle down effect to other states and the nation.
Just another part of the high cost of living in California.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/sky-high-california-gas-prices-have-a-green-additive-1437174504 (http://www.wsj.com/articles/sky-high-california-gas-prices-have-a-green-additive-1437174504)
Mandate a California specific niche gas formula that few refineries produce, shut down some area lower cost nuclear power plants that generate electricity which places greater demand on refineries to supply fuel for electric power, drought decreases electric production from hydro, & state enacts cap & trade that forces a number of smaller refineries to close.
Yep, obviously a huge oil company conspiracy. No other posible reason.....
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iski that addresses why we pay so much more in California however, I don't see where it addresses the huge fluctuations. As the news media confronts the oil companies here in California they claim it's due to a refinery that had to shut down due to scheduled maintenance.....yet the other refineries are still exporting. :nixweiss:
The most recent example.....it jumped $.75 a gallon in just a couple of days and when the media got all over it.....it went back down (at the refineries, not at the pumps). The article you posted a link for just doesn't address this kind of thing and it happens every few weeks.....over and over. :nixweiss:
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http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/03/24/california-lawmakers-question-massive-gas-price-changes/
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/sky-high-california-gas-prices-have-a-green-additive-1437174504 (http://www.wsj.com/articles/sky-high-california-gas-prices-have-a-green-additive-1437174504)
Mandate a California specific niche gas formula that few refineries produce, shut down some area lower cost nuclear power plants that generate electricity which places greater demand on refineries to supply fuel for electric power, drought decreases electric production from hydro, & state enacts cap & trade that forces a number of smaller refineries to close.
Yep, obviously a huge oil company conspiracy. No other posible reason.....
Yup, and those things help explain why the average price in California is significantly higher than the average price in Paducah. But they don't explain the overnight $.50 and up increases that occur not only in California, but also here in the Chicago metro area and many other places. And btw, we also have reformulated "clean burning" fuel mandated here, as do many parts of the country that have air pollution issues, and our gas prices are currently in the $2.59 - $2.89 range.
In this area we also get hit with overnight $.50 increases at the pump, for no discernible reasons. A common occurrence here is to get hit with a big increase when the refineries make their annual shift to summer blends from winter blends, as if that required rebuilding the refinery or something, and then again when they shift back to winter blends, and then again whenever something happens globally that makes it easy for the futures speculators to bid the price of crude up. It doesn't matter that your local refineries aren't paying that inflated futures price, and probably never will, but it's instant justification for a huge hike the very next business day on the fuel that's already sitting in storage. Then when the latest scare tactic turns out to be another BS deal, and the storage facilities are filled to overflowing with fuel no one is buying, the pump prices finally start dropping by a penny today, maybe two pennies in another couple days, etc.. In one or two months we might make it back to where the prices were before the bogus increase. Then the local refineries decide they all have to shut down for routine "maintenance" during the same time period, creating an artificial shortage (on paper only, the storage tanks are filled to the brim) that justifies another big pump price bump even though demand is still low and supply of both refined products and crude oil is excessive. Funny how supply and demand never enter the equation except when the results are in favor of the oil industry.
When they do these things repeatedly, it's not hard to understand why many people believe a conspiracy exists, at least on a local or regional basis. It's not the retailers who are driving this, it's the refineries and the distributors who are setting the price. Gas stations around here survive on profits from the attached convenience store, not the fuel.
Jerry
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Costs a pile to live there for sure. But all you have to do is look at salaries...........most at least twice what they are in the sticks of NC.
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Quit yer whinin'.....$1.43.9/l for 94 here in Nanaimo....that's $4.19us/us gal!!
Well...most of you quit yer whinin'.....I scrolled back and saw $5.39/gal....ouch!
Diesel is $1.16.9/l here.
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Yup, and those things help explain why the average price in California is significantly higher than the average price in Paducah. But they don't explain the overnight $.50 and up increases that occur not only in California, but also here in the Chicago metro area and many other places. And btw, we also have reformulated "clean burning" fuel mandated here, as do many parts of the country that have air pollution issues, and our gas prices are currently in the $2.59 - $2.89 range.
In this area we also get hit with overnight $.50 increases at the pump, for no discernible reasons. A common occurrence here is to get hit with a big increase when the refineries make their annual shift to summer blends from winter blends, as if that required rebuilding the refinery or something, and then again when they shift back to winter blends, and then again whenever something happens globally that makes it easy for the futures speculators to bid the price of crude up. It doesn't matter that your local refineries aren't paying that inflated futures price, and probably never will, but it's instant justification for a huge hike the very next business day on the fuel that's already sitting in storage. Then when the latest scare tactic turns out to be another BS deal, and the storage facilities are filled to overflowing with fuel no one is buying, the pump prices finally start dropping by a penny today, maybe two pennies in another couple days, etc.. In one or two months we might make it back to where the prices were before the bogus increase. Then the local refineries decide they all have to shut down for routine "maintenance" during the same time period, creating an artificial shortage (on paper only, the storage tanks are filled to the brim) that justifies another big pump price bump even though demand is still low and supply of both refined products and crude oil is excessive. Funny how supply and demand never enter the equation except when the results are in favor of the oil industry.
When they do these things repeatedly, it's not hard to understand why many people believe a conspiracy exists, at least on a local or regional basis. It's not the retailers who are driving this, it's the refineries and the distributors who are setting the price. Gas stations around here survive on profits from the attached convenience store, not the fuel.
Jerry
Companies take profit when they can, or they would cease to become companies. Oil company profits, as a % of their overall portfolios are well documented. This industry, like so many others in our less thsn perfect "capitalist" society, suffers under enjoys the regulations of various governing bodies that tell it how to blend it's products as well as where those mandated blends can be sold. Then sometimes, for some reasons, people use more energy. Historically people drive more during the summer months in North America. Demand increases greater than supllies. None of the above could possibly provide any logical explanation for a gas price increase.
The only logical explanation for any price increase on petrofuels, as I already stated, is a huge conspiracy by the huge greedy bad mean etc. oil companies. Guilty as charged, no doubt. As Cheech & Chong said so well many years ago, paraphrased - Bailiff whack their pe......nevermind.
I have found from observations over my more than a few years as I glide into my planned curmudgeondom, that given the opportunity, "stereotypes are real time savers". It explains some things well at some times.
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Quit yer whinin'.....$1.43.9/l for 94 here in Nanaimo....that's $4.19us/us gal!!
Well...most of you quit yer whinin'.....I scrolled back and saw $5.39/gal....ouch!
Diesel is $1.16.9/l here.
Since is frozen there most of the time, will prices drop when the Global Warming causes Canada to thaw out? :nixweiss:
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Jerry, when the rest of the country ends up with reformulated gas (it's coming folks.....just like catalytic converters on all vehicles) and the extreme, unexplainable price fluctuations then they'll understand. :nixweiss:
Dayne66, I wish we were only paying $4.19 a gallon. :nervous:
Something else that the refineries can't explain.....here in California two years ago (they had reformulated gas long before two years ago) diesel fuel was more than gas. Now, diesel fuel is much less than gas. What happened there? :nixweiss: Not complaining since I drive a diesel Superduty and only have my bike that's gas.....justsayinzall.
This topic sure has interest......
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Fun reading for the whole family.
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ (http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/)
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Fuel is the USA's number one export and has been for some time. The attitude of the oil companies is "well your all driving fuel efficient vehicles, so why should we make less money".
In SoCal because of the drought we are trying to conserve on water, but my water rates just went up because "we are selling less water to our customers, so why should we make less".
I guess we should just get used to it. :(
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The cost of living the good life Lou. :P
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It's amazing how over the last many, many years, The politicians of the state continue to Californicate themselves over these (environmental) related concerns, lack of water to save some small fish from getting killed by clogging up the pumps while allowing good water to flow directly into the sea...........thus shorting the farmers of much needed irrigation to maintain their crops..........then there is the billions (with a B) in unfunded pension plans that continues to grow.......on and on. :nixweiss:
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One of the benefits of my living to an nearly advanced age is a recollecting of year to year occurences. JCZ each year, for as long as I can remember, people have a tendency to
complain ruminate about certain things on a seasonal basis. Some do not apply as well to Cali, as in folks in nothern states seem perturbed by a cold weather event involving frozen H2O (s) in winter, folks in the south & west are every bit as perturbed by the heat of the hot summer with no falling H2O. But almost each & every year (exceptions are years when people travel less for economic reasons or whatever) as demand for fuel increases due to travel and/or air conditioning due to heat/cold, gas prices increase. Historically they spike during the warmer summer months. Add in declining refinery capacities & some years the price spike is greater. Each year as gas prices increase, folks blame the oil companies. It's like the swallows in Capistrano, only different.
Of course as I have posted 2 times already, greater consumer demand placed on a government regulated cafe regional menu fuel supply combined with other increased seasonal energy demands on petrofuels could provide no logical reasons for any price increases. I think the bad evil greedy etc. oil companies are sticking it to the state of California, because they want to. No other reason makes any sense whatsoever.
I have worked in Cali and vacationed in Cali many times & to my great relief & the even greater relief of the state's citizens & wildlife, there is a less than zero chance that I would move there. Ever.
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Today in Knoxville, unleaded regular was $2.14, premium was $2.56, of course i had almost a full tank when passing thru
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Just hope you don't pass by tomorrow and the premium is $3.25. That's the kind of thing we experience. :o
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Saw something on the groove tube the other day about this. Oil companies are complaining that they don't have enough refineries to handle the load.
Then they went on to say that California oil companies are exporting gasoline to South America. So yeah, it's price fixing plain and simple if the news cast is accurate.
Kommifornia, no offense to those who ain't like that.
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Saw something on the groove tube the other day about this. Oil companies are complaining that they don't have enough refineries to handle the load.
Then they went on to say that California oil companies are exporting gasoline to South America. So yeah, it's price fixing plain and simple if the news cast is accurate.
Kommifornia, no offense to those who ain't like that.
Yes, the entire story about not enough refineries is hogwash. I remember a story from last year where the biggest export item from this country was refined petroleum products, and we still export large amounts of refined petroleum products every month.
Jerry
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There has not been a complex refinery built in the USA since the '70's..........Several have been added since, but not with the capacity of those back in the '70's....... ( with one noted exception.........Capacity has also been added to existing refineries through upgrades or new construction. The most recent examples are:
• In 2012, Motiva upgraded its refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, making it the largest refinery in the United States with a capacity of 603,000 b/cd as of January 1, 2015.)
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=29&t=6
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It's just business, everyone is doing what they can to make a buck, as long as it's not illegal you'd do the same in your business and if you wouldn't you want be in business long . It looks convoluted from the outside but everyone is just trying to get ahead.
Supershooter
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Today in Knoxville, unleaded regular was $2.14, premium was $2.56, of course i had almost a full tank when passing thru
gas prices aside....Jim, you came through K'ville and didn't give me a shout? Shame, shame..... ;D :huepfenjump3:
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We're in and have been in the low to mid $2 range for fuel for quite a while now. I paid $2.34 Saturday filling up Tank on regular. Premium (93 octane) runs from $2.79 for 10% blended or $2.89 to $3 for 100% depending on where you purchase. I use the 100% premium in the bimmer, cooper and Ginger.
JC, may I suggest this quote from that great philosopher John "Bluto" Blutarsky "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily" because fuel prices are just going up, up, up and we keep using it. Me? I'm waiting for the Hydrogen powered rides and see how much water prices go up..... :huepfenjump3: :huepfenjump3: :huepfenlol2: ;D
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You have a point Haird. Kind of like the Harley thing.....prices just keep going up and we keep paying them. :nervous:
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The cost of living the good life Lou. :P
Your right there my friend. I watch 70-90 mph family boats do their $100+ laps around the lake all day. 8)
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More fun reading for the entire family - updated.
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ (http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/)
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Notice it says "West Coast Less California" :nervous:
On the up side.....diesel at the Chevron down the street has dropped to $2.87. :2vrolijk_21:
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Missed this the first time, but that .75 swing is percentage wise in line with what happens here in rural central Pennsylvania. We went from 2.39 a gallon to 2.79 a gallon in a few days. It still hasn't come all the way back down (2.59 yesterday). Gas stations aren't making much, that's why they all have become mega fat making stores of indulgence. The gas gets you in, the profit comes on the chow. A former employee at our local Exxon said they're making only between .04 and .12 per gallon. So they do jack the prices before they get their resupply to cover the cost increase when they buy. They never lower ahead of time. Sometimes because a competing station gets their resupply on a different schedule they have to lower their prices and are actually loosing money on the gas. So IF you believe them, its a wash in the end... And I'm not say I do believe them.
I will be a good boy won't do specific political discussion here. But my guess is that in general there's plenty of blame to go around from political activism, corporate greed and cronyism, and pure governmental mismanagement and manipulation.
Edit - That gas swing from 2.39 to 2.79 was back in March or April... I hit my head to hard banging it into the pump while fueling and can't remember the specific date.
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Diesel in the greater Milwaukee area was $2.49 last night!
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Cali has their own special fuel requirements, so they get special pricing. Required by a special law. Other places also have special fuel laws.
Obviously, the mean evil big oil companies just arbitrarily reduced the prices of fuel, in a similar way as when they just arbitrarily increased the prices of fuel. Laws of supply & demand, refinery capacities, other industries increase/decrease in energy requirements, limited special fuel blends demanded by special places, & increase/decrease in fuel demand by the traveling public have no effect on price ups or downs. The oil companies only do this to take advantage of the publc, no matter what the price is. That is the only possible reason for gas to be more expensive in special places & less expensive in others. Why do the big mean oil companies do this, without any reason as to supply or demand? Because they are big & evil.
Or it could be a predictable pattern of up/down prices following certain supply/demand parameters. Nah, that's just crazy talk.
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Alabama is in the $2.05 range now.
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Cali has their own special fuel requirements, so they get special pricing. Required by a special law. Other places also have special fuel laws.
Or it could be a predictable pattern of up/down prices following certain supply/demand parameters. Nah, that's just crazy talk.
Sure... All very true. But some have a name for raising your prices sharply when a sharp demand comes along and you want to take the opportunity to maximize profits. Its called price gouging. Then again, when you look at who makes the most off of a gallon of gas, it's the Foreign oil, then the government, then marketing people, then the gas companies, then the poor slob just trying to keep his family gas station open selling enough junk food to earn a living. When you look at the profit off that gallon of gas its a little different. It's all profit to the government. The oil companies and the oil suppliers and the refiners all make a few cents to a few nickles profit. And the marketing people still get their outrageous budgets to sell us something that a commodity that we all need and will buy even without any advertising.
So before I call for the head of Exxon's head, I'd like to see the government stop using fuel as a cash cow and increase domestic supply so there's a reliable even supply.
And maybe let the corn be used to feed people and not cars. Since it uses more energy to make and transport then it produces and it damages engines possible causing them to ADD pollution to the air. And it raises fuel and food prices. And it could be made into drinking alcohol. Buts that just crazy alcoholic talk. ;D
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I paid $ 2.08/gal today for 87 octane. Diesel $ 2.31/ gal. That was at Murphy Gas.
Mike
:drink:
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I paid $ 2.08/gal today for 87 octane. Diesel $ 2.31/ gal. That was at Murphy Gas.
Mike :drink:
Our local Murphy(Walmart) was $2.52 Sunday, everybody else is hangin' at $2.62ish.
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Sure... All very true. But some have a name for raising your prices sharply when a sharp demand comes along and you want to take the opportunity to maximize profits. Its called price gouging. Then again, when you look at who makes the most off of a gallon of gas, it's the Foreign oil, then the government, then marketing people, then the gas companies, then the poor slob just trying to keep his family gas station open selling enough junk food to earn a living. When you look at the profit off that gallon of gas its a little different. It's all profit to the government. The oil companies and the oil suppliers and the refiners all make a few cents to a few nickles profit. And the marketing people still get their outrageous budgets to sell us something that a commodity that we all need and will buy even without any advertising.
So before I call for the head of Exxon's head, I'd like to see the government stop using fuel as a cash cow and increase domestic supply so there's a reliable even supply.
And maybe let the corn be used to feed people and not cars. Since it uses more energy to make and transport then it produces and it damages engines possible causing them to ADD pollution to the air. And it raises fuel and food prices. And it could be made into drinking alcohol. Buts that just crazy alcoholic talk. ;D
You make way too much sense. Sure price gouging & greed are the heart of a true capitalistic system. In a highly regulated industry, like petrochemicals, it is quasi capitalistic at best. 40 years ago government tax per gallon was much, much less. I pumped gas for $.279/gl for years, small 2 pump station run by my uncle.. Now Federal gas excise tax is 18.4 cents per gl. Total gas tax per gl per state ranges from .30 to .63. The oil companies net margins per gl are less than that. Gas station margins are less, buy those Slim Jims or they go broke. The real bad guy when it comes to the price of gas combined with idiocies like the ethanol mandate is the government. But, as in many other government created ..... shall we term them Artificial Markets, the government screw up gets ignored & the Big Evil Corporation is blamed instead. Of course I choose to blame only Big Evil Oil companies for the high government taxes per gallon. Why? Because stereotypes are a real timesaver. We have all the answers in another thread: Crazy Motorcote talk.
This is a good theme, I give this thread a 9.3. ;D
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Some observations... Some questions...
8-10 months ago OPEC drops the price of oil significantly, and keeps it reduced, great for us consumers (lower prices at the pump), but massive layoffs in domestic oil production industry, a friend that works on a rig supply boat in the Gulf got laid off 4 months ago "we had 26 boats servicing the rigs in the Gulf, we're down to 3, the rest have been redeployed elsewhere (with foreign crews)...."
I saw on one of the CNNs last week that Shell Oil was laying off 6,500...
What I'm gathering is that for domestic production to be economically attractive, oil has to be above a certain price?
I haven't heard any commercials (marketing) about "Energy Independence" from the major oil companies lately, have you???
'One can't let little things like "patriotism" and " an energy independent USA" get in the way of those $10Billion / qtr Profits...
Ever notice 6-12 months before a Presidential Election the price at the pump is always a good bit lower than the preceding 2-1/2 years or so??
Can anyone explain why diesel was so much more $ than gasoline for so long (what, a good 10 years?) and now has returned to "normal" (<gasoline) ???
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http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012015/what-average-profit-margin-company-oil-gas-drilling-sector.asp (http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012015/what-average-profit-margin-company-oil-gas-drilling-sector.asp)
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Saw something on the groove tube the other day about this. Oil companies are complaining that they don't have enough refineries to handle the load.
Then they went on to say that California oil companies are exporting gasoline to South America. So yeah, it's price fixing plain and simple if the news cast is accurate.
Kommifornia, no offense to those who ain't like that.
I believe everything Big Media says in service to Big Brother. I definitely don't believe the media would leave out important info, like the fact the refineries have contracts, i.e., legal requirements, to supply a certain amount of product to overseas buyers (export). So when one refinery closes for maintenance or switch-over, I don't believe there is less supply to meet the continued demand. I also don't believe in the law of supply and demand, so prices shouldn't increase when demand is higher than supply. By the same token, I don't believe I should get a lower price on a CVO (or anything else) when the dealer has a dozen on the floor and more arriving every day. It's just not fair.
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8-10 months ago OPEC drops the price of oil significantly, and keeps it reduced, great for us consumers (lower prices at the pump), but massive layoffs in domestic oil production industry, a friend that works on a rig supply boat in the Gulf got laid off 4 months ago "we had 26 boats servicing the rigs in the Gulf, we're down to 3, the rest have been redeployed elsewhere (with foreign crews)...."
My brother-in-law works for Halliburton, the oil drilling and servicing company. He spends 6 months per year in Saudi Arabia. He says SA can make money with oil at $5/barrel, while American companies need at least $50/barrel...and that SA decided to make it a losing deal for Americans to drill for oil. So they increased the output from their wells to drop the price of oil. It worked, just like the law of supply and demand says. Don't ever believe the Saudis are our friends.
So oil prices are low, which kills the American oil drilling industry and their jobs. Now the bottleneck on U.S. gas prices is the lack of refining capacity. There's been no significant increase in capacity for 40+ years, and most of the refineries are running at full speed. The gasoline supply chain is Drill-Extract-Transport-Refine-Distribute-Sell. If there's a bottleneck at any of those links, then price downstream will increase. It doesn't matter if storage tanks are full, since that is a tiny quantity compared to the daily turnover.
In war, you try to spend your money (limited resources) where it will have the greatest effect on the enemy's abilities to hurt you and to keep himself going. Destroying a refinery is golden, since they are complex, hard to build and operate properly, and will be out of service for a long time. Meanwhile, it will degrade their ability to grow food, to manufacture war materiel, and to distribute anything. And how are they going to build a new refinery without producing and moving fuel, steel, and people?
Of course, if you can just prevent the enemy from building a new refinery for 45 years, you can win that future war without firing a shot.
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I work for a very large company in the oil industry, the economic ignorabnce displayed by some is astounding. The US Oil companies have a ROI of less than 10%, more like 6 %, not exactly the cash cows you all think they are. Cali gets what it deserves, discouraging upgrading of assets in place, even when begged by teh companies that want to spend money there to do the upgrading of refineries, fields (of which California has huge reserves that are untouchable), distribution systems, and botique gas blends. They have disconnected themselves from the regional sector so far nobody else can supply them. Always remember this general rule, the oil companies make sbout 2 cpg on gas profit (if they are really good), the government takes between 25 cents and $1 + on a gallon of gas, who do you think is motivated to keep prices high? I sit here in Texas and laugh at these know it all economists who think the oil companies control a goddam thing. Blame yourselves and your Governement for what you pay.
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I work for a very large company in the oil industry, the economic ignorabnce displayed by some is astounding. The US Oil companies have a ROI of less than 10%, more like 6 %, not exactly the cash cows you all think they are. Cali gets what it deserves, discouraging upgrading of assets in place, even when begged by teh companies that want to spend money there to do the upgrading of refineries, fields (of which California has huge reserves that are untouchable), distribution systems, and botique gas blends. They have disconnected themselves from the regional sector so far nobody else can supply them. Always remember this general rule, the oil companies make sbout 2 cpg on gas profit (if they are really good), the government takes between 25 cents and $1 + on a gallon of gas, who do you think is motivated to keep prices high? I sit here in Texas and laugh at these know it all economists who think the oil companies control a goddam thing. Blame yourselves and your Governement for what you pay.
Media & other folks & many universities preach oil is evil & oil companies are even more evil. Has been done for years. Profit margins for oil as compared to a number of other industries are lower margins, yet industries with higher profit margins are not demonized. Why? Certain interests need a "bad guy" to blame stuff on. Stereotyping in that case is a real time saver. Supply as well as the type of supply - a crazy quilt a la carte system - is mandated by government. Some areas pay the price for that, literally. Easier to blame an oil company than the government, terminology is called deflection. Add no new US refineries plus strict limits on exploration due to government regulations and these problems are compounded.
My take is: nobody here will change their opinions. Media as well as other influences reinforce thought processes that were originally introduced by media as well as those same influences. Blaming oil companies as The Bad Price Gouging Boogeyman (the stereotype) is much too popular as a concept. Have friends in several states that work in the oil industry. Great folks, hard work.
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I work for a very large company in the oil industry, the economic ignorabnce displayed by some is astounding. The US Oil companies have a ROI of less than 10%, more like 6 %, not exactly the cash cows you all think they are. Cali gets what it deserves, discouraging upgrading of assets in place, even when begged by teh companies that want to spend money there to do the upgrading of refineries, fields (of which California has huge reserves that are untouchable), distribution systems, and botique gas blends. They have disconnected themselves from the regional sector so far nobody else can supply them. Always remember this general rule, the oil companies make sbout 2 cpg on gas profit (if they are really good), the government takes between 25 cents and $1 + on a gallon of gas, who do you think is motivated to keep prices high? I sit here in Texas and laugh at these know it all economists who think the oil companies control a goddam thing. Blame yourselves and your Governement for what you pay.
I absolutely agree with everything you've said about California and the mess they've made for themselves. I also don't question your numbers as to where the money goes and I hope I did make it clear that I think the government is the problem when it comes to the overall high prices. They get the biggest share of the money and they assume absolutely no risk for what they rob from the consumer in the form of punitive and hidden taxation.
My negativity towards the industry is in the form of the wild price swings that happen long before an oil shortage hits the market. A Hurricane is forecast today and the prices will be up .20 before they know if its going to go into the gulf or up the middle of the Atlantic. But let the surplus that is currently happening because of OPEC continuing to over produce and the anticipation of Iranian reserves hitting the market and the gas prices around here have fallen... .05 Oil is at record lows and since the spike we're down a total of .20 since April. Sorry, but someone is cleaning up on that. I know its not the local station as they're profit margin is right around the same as your saying the oil profit margin is. They do jack their prices before they pay for new stuff but that's because they know the shipment they're receiving tomorrow will now be jacked because of said Hurricane or war or election or... whatever.
Somewhere along the way something is out of whack. I don't know what it is and I really would like to. I'm not one whose mind can't be changed. Give me a good set of peer reviewed facts that can be verified and I'll be all over defending the oil companies, refiners, transporters, distributors or retailers. My natural instinct is ALWAYS to blame the government and I never trust them. But in this case I see them taking their bucket of blood at a consistent rate. The price swings that go up in days but take weeks to go down have all the economic indicators of price gouging.
So fill me in. I'll appreciate the education!
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JC - oil is a publicly traded commodity. A world market, not a US only market. Traders - serious or silly - world wide set pricing, world wide. There are exceptions where some countries set oil prices arbitrarily, the US is not one. There are many factors that drive the smaller regional markets. Those factors are complex & interrelated - weather related events - huuricanes, extreme cold weather, etc. are just one of those factors. Travel, lack of travel, energy needs for power production +/-, manufacturing +/- and a host of other economic issues are cost drivers. Anticipated increase/decrease is a price driver. As with most commodity markets that are publicly traded as well as world wide the strength of the dollar vs the relative value of other currencies is another cost driver. A stronger dollar or a weaker dollar's relative worth to the up/down valution of other currencies can be a huge factor.. I make no claims to understand it all. It is more complex even than Willie Davidson's sock drawer after laundry day.
As I stated earlier, my expectations (based on past experience combined with lower coffee intake) are that minds are set, oil for most is Big Evil Oil, & info contrary to that opinion is considered as blather. Of course most all my posts are blather so that expectation is easily met. Stereotyping good guys/bad guys is a time honored tradition. Oil is supposed to be the bad guys, we the consumers are supposed to be the good guys. And that is the way it is.
A light hearted peek at a futures market, not quite a knee slapper:
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/CL.html (http://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/CL.html)
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Well put ISKI, I have been involved in pricing/trading for the past twenty years the first 10 years of my career being in pipelines and terminals so I know the factors that drive the price pretty well. I can tell you from first hand experience in Cali that your government has isolated the market from alternative supplies to the point where one hiccup in the distribution system has an exponentially magnified effect. In normal states the industry builds contingencies into the distribution system, we call this continuity planning, cant do that in Cali. I cant take barrels from NYH and ship them to Cali, I cant even take barrels from the Gulf and ship them to Cali. With this being the case and add the fact that we cant build any more infrastructure locally, you get the perfect sht storm with even the smallest issue in the system, issues so small they wouldn't even move the needle anywhere else in the world cause huge swings in that economically suicidal state.
The business environment in Cali is so bad you will never see major investment in that state by any major oil company, I believe even Cheveron, which is a Cali founded company has moved their HQ out of there and stopped investing there. Sad really because Cali sits on or real close to major oil reserves and has the location and environment to be self sufficient.
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Masterblaster, yes and oil is not the only industry that avoids Cali, for some very good business sense reasons. I live in NoFl. Years ago became aware of a number of farmers relocating in this area, mostly south Georgia. Have spoken with more than a few, same basic story - they left a high tax anti biz climate for greener pastures, literally. Go to AZ, NV, TX and others & this is no fad - for many industries is a trend.
Taking the time with an open mind to understand complexity of issues as nowhere near as easy as one of my favorite sayings - Stereotypes are real time savers. Big Oil be bad, easy mindset. At a somewhat different level than you ( ;D ) I was pumping gas & managing a small 2 pump station in the evenings in Willie Nelson's home town in Texas for 4 years. Just happened to be during the 70s oil crisis, an earlier cost "gift" from government. Prices had spiked in short order about 20 cents. Me, the attendant, was cursed, spat at, yelled at, & had money thrown on the ground instead of handed to me from angry customers blaming me (less than $2 an hour pay). Troubled me, so I began to pay attention instead of eating the media oil "news" pablum. All the bad stuff was from interestate travelers, not one incident from locals Had friends then in distribution, then several went to the oil fields all around the world. Considered it myself as college wound down but passed. Anyway my career did not encompass oil except as an investment, but did have the opportunity to observe many commodity markets and the factors that drive them. Mostly in the food biz. A beetle or fungus infestation on a cocoa field in Africa combined with a weak US dollar & an out of whack import quota on sugar driving the retail price of brownies or chocolate chip cookies, nah let's blame Kroger instead of the real reasons. It's human nature. Not going to change. Cali sits on untold but untouchable by law oil reserves wealth, as do a number of other areas. Must be Big Oils fault. ;)
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iski, as a watcher of commodities, you should model how ethanol requirements distort food/energy prices and look at the secondary effects on the poorer nations in the world. Its scary the damage our economically ignorant governments can do.
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iski, as a watcher of commodities, you should model how ethanol requirements distort food/energy prices and look at the secondary effects on the poorer nations in the world. Its scary the damage our economically ignorant governments can do.
MB am now retired. My last job was with a food company that traded significant amounts of sweeteners. The impact of ethanol on food markets is incredible. Bad, depending on one's perspective. As a nation we chose ethanol from corn, which has created an artificial market that is wasteful, stupid, consumer hated, extremely complex & a tax lawyer's paradise. In other words a GREAT federally mandated program, juged by that standard. If we had chosen cane instead some poorer nations around the world would have greatly benefited. Nutrition vs fuel is not much of issue here, but it is elsewhere. But we did not, we chose corn, and the price of my Doritos went up. I blame the evil that calls itself Frito Lay instead of the government that caused it. Why? Chester Cheetah is not to be trusted, he lives a lavish lifestyle & I think he now dates a Kardashian. Despicable. ;D
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The main difference between gas and Iski's doritos is Iski can live without doritos (at least I think he can)
nobody really complains about dorito pricing because you do not have to buy them. Not so for Gas.
Just like any product that must be purchased, it is scrutinized to the highest degree.
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I'll agree with everything you said guys. Even the big oil is evil. I think that because they hire accountants. Accountants are the evil telling lawyers how manipulate the money that the lawyers are robbing. :P :D
Ok, seriously, none of it explains to me why prices spike up to .40 on a perceived crises but take months to come back down if the crisis proves to be non existant or other factors come into play like a surplus in oil production etc. Since the taxes aren't being adjusted (they remain criminally high) and I know the local guy selling me the gas at the pump isn't making money on it, its got to be somewhere in between. Maybe its the distributors. I know much of the gas you buy that's branded this or that all comes from the same storage tank. If the price jumped up and down at the same rate I'd say commodity market, that's how the free market works. But to me it has all the signs of price gouging.
For the record: Absolutely agree that ethenol is the worst thing in the world in our fuel supply both as a product and a concept. It cause more pollution, damages equipment, decreases mileage, raises fuel prices and proportionality penalizes the poor at a higher rate by making both their fuel and food non affordable. Punitive taxes that are not used to facilitate or improve the travel infrastructure or further the fuel supply add an extreme burden to the cost as well. On a cost per share, cost per gallon basis the government is making it hand over fist and that's ultimately responsible for the high prices overall.
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Can semi live without Doritos Keats. Cheetos, nope. I blame Frito Lay & the cracker stacker at the local grocery whose name is Melvin. :) Consider a map of US gas prices, averaged, & many areas that are the highest price are special, because they have special gas. How lucky it is to be spec.... nevermind.
JC there is a lag time on commodity pricing. As an evil bean counter sucking the very marrow of life from the companies upon which you preyed accountant you are familiar with replacement cost & opportunity cost. Storage cost of product at the station (in the ground) & cost of product in distribution channels are factors, Gas & diesel pricing do not follow a simple straight line formula. In my food biz, a crop shortage, spike in demand, or glut in supply were 'triggers' that set in motion +/- pricing scenarios. Grocery stores & restaurants try to soften the price swings by contracting or just absorbing a price increase & will try to delay a price decrease, so the consumer has less sticker shock. Gas companies do not operate the same way & price swings can appear quickly at the pump. Commodities pricing structures may be worse to explain than Willie's sock drawer. Because oil companies are big & evil, of course. Just continue to believe that, rinse, & repeat. Life is simpler that way. ;D
True story, somewhat.....the Spousal Unit found a cooked string in a bag of Doritos this week. Called Frito Lay 800#. The CEO is flying out to personaly apologize & grovel & we get to ride on the corporate jets free for a year. Maybe, not confirmed. :P Even better, we got coupons for free Doritos & Grandmas Cookies! I still hate Frito Lay with the heat of a thousand white hot suns on Unicorn Rainbow Sparkles Day, of course. Because. It. Makes. Life. Simpler. 8)
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This subject is like :beatdeadhorse:as we know why and how we are getting the shaft.
What we don't see are alternative answers to cheap fuel. Weather it be for cars, heating, generating electricity, planes, trains, ships/boats, ect.
For every action there is a reaction is so very true, and a lot of the reaction is knee jerking at best.
Now before you start with the solar, wind, hydro ( including wave/current ), hydrogen, and ethanol all take special equipment to extract electricity. I don't claim to have the answer, but if we could convert Kudzu into feed for cattle and harness the methane. Or use Kudzu to make ethanol we could have a renewable source
of vegetation and it is cheaper than corn and grows much quicker. We would have to keep the likes of Monsanto and their cronies out of the loop. Also the government.
Mike
:drink:
This is meant as a non-political post so don't make it something it is not!
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Mike, you and I are friends. But if you ever call me the A word again I will send a strongly worded PM! I was an IT geek forced to support accountants, I have not and never shall be an accountant good sir! :P ;D
So, what your saying is the corporations manipulate prices on commodities. Got it. Isn't that I what I was saying? ;D (We really need a hysterical laughing guy).
Over all the take away from this meeting is that we need to stop and get Doritos on the way home. Cool ranch for me. :2vrolijk_21:
Oh... And we're screwed.
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Mike, you and I are friends. But if you ever call me the A word again I will send a strongly worded PM! I was an IT geek forced to support accountants, I have not and never shall be an accountant good sir! :P ;D
So, what your saying is the corporations manipulate prices on commodities. Got it. Isn't that I what I was saying? ;D (We really need a hysterical laughing guy).
Over all the take away from this meeting is that we need to stop and get Doritos on the way home. Cool ranch for me. :2vrolijk_21:
Oh... And we're screwed.
A misunderstanding of epic proportions, my apologies JC! You were using magical electrical switches set in mystical random patterns in weird boxes with flashing lights to royally screw up the data keeping as well as internal communications for a group of Money Juggling A-Clowns an IT guy for accountants. Understood, thanks for the clarification.
Of course oil companies set prices, as best they can to maximize profit. All the companies I worked for in food did more or less the same. Pricing is whatever the market will bear. All for profit business, in one way or another, does the same. All business is evil, because of greed. Some pretend to be less greedy & do Happy Dances to make certain folks think they are not profit - greed- driven. If they are non profit, sometimes they are even more evil, but that is a dead horse to beat in another thread.
Yes, evil. And big. Have said this consistently all along. Not that it bothers me...... except for today, Frito Lay, because today, I picked them.
Yes, Doritos are an important food group, part of a well rounded nutritional diet, because of..... spray dried cheese! Yum!
;D :huepfenlol2:
And yes, we are screwed. 8)
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This is not rocket science it is just free market in play.
if you can sell your product for more at opportune times and get away with it, go for it
The food industry is not that far in business models from the petroleum industry. The big difference is the Petroleum industry has not found a way to sell you a gallon of gas that is only 3/4 of a gallon.
The food industry has perfected that model with creative (deceptive) packaging. I wonder at times does the food industry sell more food than air.
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At least with the rabid eco terrorists the oil companies are only poisoning you indirectly, but the food industry has a direct line.
according to 1 percentile of eco terrorists
LOL
Do not get me started on GMO's
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Earlier this week the largest refinery here in the Midwest, BP-Whiting, shut down the largest of it's three crude distillation units due to breakdown of the equipment. It originally went down many months ago when it was being operated by replacement workers, but I won't go into that at the moment other than to say it broke down due to their actions and or lack thereof. Not an act of god like a tornado, but something they are directly responsible for. Within 24 hours of this latest shutdown, gas prices here jumped $0.75, and the predictions are it will rise another $0.50 over the next week. Now while they are the largest refinery, they are definitely not the only refinery in this area. We are back to school in much of the area, so heavy travel vacation season has already been wound down for the most part. Demand is still relatively low, and supply is still relatively high. So what is the justification for such a huge instant price increase?
Over in the competitive arena where I worked for 35 years, when one of our automotive plants had to shut down or curtail production due to a facility or equipment failure, we didn't get to go out and add a surcharge to all those cars and trucks we had already produced. Any losses just flowed to the bottom line, and the stockholders and employees bore the loss. Now switch to the oil industry and companies like BP, where no matter how many times they screw up the costs just get passed to the consumers and the corporation still nets $20 billion or more a year, no matter if they blow up a refinery, blow up an oil rig and fill the Gulf with crude, or just fail to keep their equipment maintained and repaired. Have to love an industry that can't fail to make a profit, no matter how poorly they run the show. Sounds like a pretty sweet racket to me.
Jerry
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This is not rocket science it is just free market in play.
if you can sell your product for more at opportune times and get away with it, go for it
The food industry is not that far in business models from the petroleum industry. The big difference is the Petroleum industry has not found a way to sell you a gallon of gas that is only 3/4 of a gallon.
The food industry has perfected that model with creative (deceptive) packaging. I wonder at times does the food industry sell more food than air.
Cheaters - 15 ounces instead of a pound, a 1 1/2 quart "half gallon", etc. used to be rare, now are common. Candy bar sizes shrink or grow. All of that & more brings many millions to bottom lines. Frito is in the air biz, with some brightly colored grain product inside. Best margin in food is air. Pure evil. With air. 8)
Of course each & every food company is doing their very best to poison all their customers. Why would they do otherise? Maybe sick/dead people eat more? Maybe not.... Yes PLEASE buy all the organic, natural, GMO free, etc. food types instead of the "poison" varieties. Do not pay any attention to the price points that are 50% to 200% higher in some cases for organic & all. Spend more for food, it MUST be better for ya. We loved organic, etc. long time in my biz. Not because pofits were 100% or more higher & nutritionally there was zero difference. Must have been another reason, I forget. Oh yeah, we enjoyed poisoning people or something. Tht is good for biz. ;D
Car pricing as a business model for others to follow? Car pricing structures to the buyer from the sales lot? Yep, I only wish it was that much fun to buy a tank of gas or a bill of groceries or toaster as it is to buy a car. Yep, yessiree! I really like this thread. A lot. A smile for the end of my week. ;D
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I suggest you guys that think it is a racket stop buying gas and petroleum products. This will increase supply and lower prices for the rest of us.
BP's problems up there took out the largest refinery in the midwest, 300,000 barrels a day. There is no easy quick way to supply that area, the infrastructure is running at 96%, 365. There is no fat to shift from one local to another, you can go look up the data at the energy department on inventories and demand for each area if you want to get nervous. I know its futile to defend this industry but from what I have seen in almost 30 years I can tell you I have never seen anything questionable of even suspect.
Jerry if the industry got a trillion dollar bail out when they didn't make money maybe they could do something about pricing and make everyone happy,,, well except tax payers, and our grand kids who will be left with the debt.
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Masterblaster, yes and oil is not the only industry that avoids Cali, for some very good business sense reasons. I live in NoFl. Years ago became aware of a number of farmers relocating in this area, mostly south Georgia. Have spoken with more than a few, same basic story - they left a high tax anti biz climate for greener pastures, literally. Go to AZ, NV, TX and others & this is no fad - for many industries is a trend.
Taking the time with an open mind to understand complexity of issues as nowhere near as easy as one of my favorite sayings - Stereotypes are real time savers. Big Oil be bad, easy mindset. At a somewhat different level than you ( ;D ) I was pumping gas & managing a small 2 pump station in the evenings in Willie Nelson's home town in Texas for 4 years. Just happened to be during the 70s oil crisis, an earlier cost "gift" from government. Prices had spiked in short order about 20 cents. Me, the attendant, was cursed, spat at, yelled at, & had money thrown on the ground instead of handed to me from angry customers blaming me (less than $2 an hour pay). Troubled me, so I began to pay attention instead of eating the media oil "news" pablum. All the bad stuff was from interestate travelers, not one incident from locals Had friends then in distribution, then several went to the oil fields all around the world. Considered it myself as college wound down but passed. Anyway my career did not encompass oil except as an investment, but did have the opportunity to observe many commodity markets and the factors that drive them. Mostly in the food biz. A beetle or fungus infestation on a cocoa field in Africa combined with a weak US dollar & an out of whack import quota on sugar driving the retail price of brownies or chocolate chip cookies, nah let's blame Kroger instead of the real reasons. It's human nature. Not going to change. Cali sits on untold but untouchable by law oil reserves wealth, as do a number of other areas. Must be Big Oils fault. ;)
Well at least you weren't a returning serviceman from Viet Nam getting spit on, after being drafted and serving your country...
If FL is so anti biz towards farmers, then why is FL the #2 State in the Union for agriculture / cattle production???
If big oil is so great and always looking out for us, then why did BP skimp on the blowout preventers (yea, I know it's a 1/2 million dollar piece of equipment, but that's peanuts compared to the rig costs and $10B / qtr profits) in the Gulf oil spill of 4/20/2010, causing loss of life, and millions of gallons of oil to be spilled in the Gulf?
On the other hand, fossil fuels and the related infrastructure is crucial to our civilization (all civilized countries, not just the US) as we know it for the last 100+ years...
I'm not against profit, that's what makes the world go 'round, and these (big oil) companies have billions in overhead, but in trying economic times wouldn't 4-5 $billion / quarter be enough??? Remember the price of diesel affects the price of everything...
As far as Cali, it's a different place than any other in the US, very dense population centers on the coast with prevailing Westerly winds holding the smog over LA against the mountains, so maybe the special fuels are a solution to the smog???...
Cali is a nice place to visit, no way I would have my only residence there... You can't drink a beer on the beach :drink:
As for food for fuel, I never quite figured that one out... Big Ag lobbies maybe :nixweiss:
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when one of our automotive plants had to shut down or curtail production due to a facility or equipment failure, we didn't get to go out and add a surcharge to all those cars and trucks we had already produced. Any losses just flowed to the bottom line, and the stockholders and employees bore the loss. Now switch to the oil industry and companies like BP, where no matter how many times they screw up the costs just get passed to the consumers and the corporation still nets $20 billion or more a year, no matter if they blow up a refinery, blow up an oil rig and fill the Gulf with crude, or just fail to keep their equipment maintained and repaired. Have to love an industry that can't fail to make a profit, no matter how poorly they run the show. Sounds like a pretty sweet racket to me.
Jerry
I have complained about those instant price increases and slo-o-o-w decreases for years. It still gripes me, but after reading Thomas Sowell's textbook on economics (written for the interested layman; not a dry, stilted, undecipherable mass of gobbledygoop), the difference is that most everybody can put off the purchase of a car for awhile, but not so on gasoline, drinking water, or food. When shortages hit, prices skyrocket because demand for food, etc. is inelastic in economist's terms, while demand for cars is elastic.
In the old days, when a hurricane hit, entrepeneurs would drive a truck of water to the area and charge $5/bottle. People grumbled, but paid and were glad to get it. The high price encouraged people to use the resource wisely, and, more importantly, caused businesses to send more water to the area, since the higher price would cover the higher costs. Now, with the entitlement mentality, that same entrepeneur is likely to get tarred and feathered, have the water stolen, then get charged with a crime. Businesses have no incentive to disrupt their normal routine to provide more, as they know they'll be accused of price-gouging, get bad publicity, and might be fined. So why bother? The result is no water, food, or gasoline for victims of Hurricane Sandy or other disasters. They just have to wait until the gubmint gets around to it.
Masterblaster had a great line: I suggest you guys that think it is a racket stop buying gas and petroleum products. This will increase supply and lower prices for the rest of us.
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Well at least you weren't a returning serviceman from Viet Nam getting spit on, after being drafted and serving your country...
If FL is so anti biz towards farmers, then why is FL the #2 State in the Union for agriculture / cattle production???
If big oil is so great and always looking out for us, then why did BP skimp on the blowout preventers (yea, I know it's a 1/2 million dollar piece of equipment, but that's peanuts compared to the rig costs and $10B / qtr profits) in the Gulf oil spill of 4/20/2010, causing loss of life, and millions of gallons of oil to be spilled in the Gulf?
On the other hand, fossil fuels and the related infrastructure is crucial to our civilization (all civilized countries, not just the US) as we know it for the last 100+ years...
I'm not against profit, that's what makes the world go 'round, and these (big oil) companies have billions in overhead, but in trying economic times wouldn't 4-5 $billion / quarter be enough??? Remember the price of diesel affects the price of everything...
As far as Cali, it's a different place than any other in the US, very dense population centers on the coast with prevailing Westerly winds holding the smog over LA against the mountains, so maybe the special fuels are a solution to the smog???...
Cali is a nice place to visit, no way I would have my only residence there... You can't drink a beer on the beach :drink:
As for food for fuel, I never quite figured that one out... Big Ag lobbies maybe :nixweiss:
First, thanks for your service. Several older friends were spit upon and treated poorly/atrociously by the public upon their return from VN. Infuriated me then, inexcusable. I graduated high school in 1973, was too young to go. Anyway, my being spit upon & treated badly by an ignorant public blaming me as a poor teenaged gas attendant working to help support his family (my Mom had 2 jobs then) since his Dad died when he was 16 is just the way it was.
As for Florida agriculture - perhaps you misunderstood my earlier post? The farmers I was referring to earlier were fleeing CA for greener pastures. Those include FL greener pastures, because in those former CA farmer's opinion, as well as mine, FL is a business friendly climate. My family up until my generation - both sides including my wife's family - were farmers. We still have a farm in our immediate family & quite a few in our family still farm. CA - from what I have learned from former CA farmers - is a high tax, unfriendly to business environment. Water is scarce in areas. That is why they left. Florida has great ag biz, I worked in FL for the last 20 in the food biz.
Never said BP was great. I keep saying how evil Big Oil is..... BP paid billions in fines & restitution, as they should have. The spill was preventable, a tragedy that should not have happened. Also, due to a government decision that was ill advised, oystering in Appalchee Bay area was wrecked. Not by any spilled oil, it never reached there. Needlessly hurt a lot of good very hard working folks in a dangerous industry - offshore fishing. Anyway, as a transplanted Texan, would like to see some more rigs in the gulf where there are none, to further increase domestic oil supply. In truth, I do not see that happening.
Ok, I know this thread is supposed to be about how greedy & evil Big Oil is & how we, the consumer are taken advantage of by these compnies who only rsise prices because they feel like it. Market conditions, supply/demand, oil refinery shut downs - of course those could never be the real reasons I get that, gas price increases are inexcusable, it is Conventional Wisdom. In a real world, oil company profit margins are what investors look at. Maybe GM & Ford & all the Big Auto companies (safety recalls where people die, poor workmanhip, high priced, etc.) should be thrilled with a $10 million profit? Sure. It does not work that way. Oil company net profit margins are lower than a lot of industries. Verifiable. Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Food are dominated by a small group of powerful companies that we the consumers, as long as we are "on the grid" support by our consumption. That is why at different times we fling arrows of discontent at all of these 3, and others. Of course all 3 industries are Big & Evil & as a consumer I am just taken advantage of blah blah......of course I read that on the internet plus media tells me this so it must be true. :) I do a bit of reading & research, & know others opinions differ greatly & am ok that they do. As Mongo so wisely said in a movie a long time back, paraphrased: Iski only pawn in game of life.
(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SKRma7PDW10/hqdefault.jpg)
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I know the thread is about SD gas prices, but just by way of comparison, I paid $3.04 for premium for the scoot the other day at a Shell. This is one of the few times I've paid over $3 a gallon for premium in a very long time. I actually paid around $2.59 a gallon for premium this past year.
It's crazy, but the Shell in Flippin, AR (which has a population of only 1,300 or so) has some of the cheapest prices for many miles in all directions up here, and it ain't exactly on the beaten path!
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One more point of interest for those not in the industry, typically a station with a convenience store will make more money on roller dogs and fried chicken than they will on gas, the C store is the real earner in most of these operations, gas is offered just to get you to visit and buy some fried chicken. One of the best green chili burritos I ever had was in a small podunk town in southern Colo at a Shell station made by 2 4foot something old Mexican ladies who didn't speak english. Another thing, people that own these stations typically are thousand-aries not millionaires.
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When I was pumping gas, 1970 as a memory point, gas was about .25 to .27/gl for regular &.34/gl premium. Think the station made about .02/gl. Full service station, pre C store days. No snack bar. Wash windows, check tires/oil. On an average week we made about as much money from the vending machines as gas. Made more $ on oil changes, tires, & repairs. As a point of reference, from memory, prices were about .25 for a loaf of bread & an average new car was about $3000 in 1970.
Now gas here is about 2.40/regular & 3.00/premium. Bread is about 1.60-1.80 a loaf. Average new car price is 33,560 according to USA Today. Take each category, old 1970 price, multiply times 10 & see how similar they are now plus what inflation does. Found it interesting, but am easily entertained.
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First, thanks for your service. Several older friends were spit upon and treated poorly/atrociously by the public upon their return from VN. Infuriated me then, inexcusable. I graduated high school in 1973, was too young to go. Anyway, my being spit upon & treated badly by an ignorant public blaming me as a poor teenaged gas attendant working to help support his family (my Mom had 2 jobs then) since his Dad died when he was 16 is just the way it was.
As for Florida agriculture - perhaps you misunderstood my earlier post? The farmers I was referring to earlier were fleeing CA for greener pastures. Those include FL greener pastures, because in those former CA farmer's opinion, as well as mine, FL is a business friendly climate. My family up until my generation - both sides including my wife's family - were farmers. We still have a farm in our immediate family & quite a few in our family still farm. CA - from what I have learned from former CA farmers - is a high tax, unfriendly to business environment. Water is scarce in areas. That is why they left. Florida has great ag biz, I worked in FL for the last 20 in the food biz.
Never said BP was great. I keep saying how evil Big Oil is..... BP paid billions in fines & restitution, as they should have. The spill was preventable, a tragedy that should not have happened. Also, due to a government decision that was ill advised, oystering in Appalchee Bay area was wrecked. Not by any spilled oil, it never reached there. Needlessly hurt a lot of good very hard working folks in a dangerous industry - offshore fishing. Anyway, as a transplanted Texan, would like to see some more rigs in the gulf where there are none, to further increase domestic oil supply. In truth, I do not see that happening.
Ok, I know this thread is supposed to be about how greedy & evil Big Oil is & how we, the consumer are taken advantage of by these compnies who only rsise prices because they feel like it. Market conditions, supply/demand, oil refinery shut downs - of course those could never be the real reasons I get that, gas price increases are inexcusable, it is Conventional Wisdom. In a real world, oil company profit margins are what investors look at. Maybe GM & Ford & all the Big Auto companies (safety recalls where people die, poor workmanhip, high priced, etc.) should be thrilled with a $10 million profit? Sure. It does not work that way. Oil company net profit margins are lower than a lot of industries. Verifiable. Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Food are dominated by a small group of powerful companies that we the consumers, as long as we are "on the grid" support by our consumption. That is why at different times we fling arrows of discontent at all of these 3, and others. Of course all 3 industries are Big & Evil & as a consumer I am just taken advantage of blah blah......of course I read that on the internet plus media tells me this so it must be true. :) I do a bit of reading & research, & know others opinions differ greatly & am ok that they do. As Mongo so wisely said in a movie a long time back, paraphrased: Iski only pawn in game of life.
(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SKRma7PDW10/hqdefault.jpg)
I was speaking of some friends that I grew up with, not my self...I too, was infuriated...
Sorry, I totally misunderstood what you posted about the FL biz climate...
You're right about the oysters, the State basically said; "May as well harvest them before the oil gets here" The drought around the Atlanta area (Apalachicola River System) also came into play.
Apalachicola was unscathed by the spill, but the effects got fairly close...You can still get a sack / box of "Selects" if you know where to look...
If offshore drilling was opened up in FL, GA, SC, & NC it would equate to 2 years of reserves (Oil Industry estimate), growing up in the pristine salt marshes of the SC Lowcountry and the coastline of FL, it's not worth it to me...
Don't forget the new kids on the block, "Big Tech"
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Evil oil companies reduce gas prices? Why? Since supply & demand & oil refinery shut downs & summertime special mandated niche market blends are claimed to have little or no effect on gas prices, it appears Big Oil is once again taking advantage of the public. Outrageous!!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/09/03/labor-day-gas/71654422// (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/09/03/labor-day-gas/71654422//)
"Gas prices to be lowest for Labor Day in 11 years
Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
With stock markets hitting some major bumps recently, cheap gasoline should provide Americans a far smoother ride this Labor Day weekend and the likely prospect of $2 pump prices by Christmas.
Average regular unleaded will cost the least for the Labor Day break since 2004, AAA says. The national average was $2.44 a gallon Thursday, down nine cents over the past week and $1 below the year-ago price.
Prices have fallen sharply in recent days and are expected to continue to edge down through the weekend after BP's refinery in Whiting, Ind. -- the largest in the Midwest -- was repaired in late August, increasing gasoline supplies, says AAA spokesman Avery Ash. The facility was unexpectedly shut down earlier in the month.
The lower costs are coming despite what AAA expects to be the busiest Labor Day weekend for motorists since 2008, with 30.4 million travelers hitting the road, up 1.1% from a year ago. Credit solid job and income growth, along with the bargains at the pump.
Gas prices generally have traced the dramatic decline in oil prices since February amid high crude production both in the US and overseas, and concerns about weakening global demand.
Oil prices have been volatile recently, dropping below $40 a barrel early last week for the first time in six years and then rallying as much as 28% in recent days on reports of lower-than-estimated U.S. production and possible cuts in output by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. West Texas Intermediate futures closed up 50 cents Thursday at $46.75 a barrel, though that's still down from about $61 early this year.
The recent oil rally could filter into gasoline, modestly propping up prices after the holiday weekend, Ash says.
Yet pump prices are headed down in coming months, analysts say. They remained higher than the fall in oil would suggest because of the most active U.S. summer driving season in eight years and requirements for reformulated summer gasoline blends.
Both will be over by mid-September, pushing down gas prices, and the slide will intensify after seasonal refinery maintenance ends in mid-October, says Gregg Laskowski, a senior petroleum analyst at gasbuddy.com.
"We definitely believe gas will follow a downward trend for the remainder of the calendar year," Laskowski says. Gas, he says, is likely to fall below $2 a gallon nationally by December.
Gas prices averagubg $2 a gallon can already be found in South Carolina, while Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana hover slightly above that level. The most expensive states are Alaska, at $3.40, California, at $3.31, and Nevada, at $3.11."
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Unleaded right at $1.90 in Alabama
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Unleaded right at $1.90 in Alabama
SC yesterday Reg Unl at $1.71
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SC yesterday Reg Unl at $1.71
San Diego yesterday, regular unleaded down to $3.35......but diesel is at $2.34.
It will be interesting to learn what the federal and state investigations into the California oil refineries/companies reveal. :nixweiss:
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Good price on Diesel. I paid 229.9 for Diesel last week. Regular gas is a few cents more and premium is still up at 295.9 in Central and Western Maryland. Going closer to DC you will pay a lot more.
Be Safe
THE DAWG
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San Diego yesterday, regular unleaded down to $3.35......but diesel is at $2.34.
Ouch! Regular is back down in the 2.30 range, premium back under $3 at most stations here in north-central Arkansas.
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San Diego yesterday, regular unleaded down to $3.35......but diesel is at $2.34.
It will be interesting to learn what the federal and state investigations into the California oil refineries/companies reveal. :nixweiss:
Just shows there's some fixin going on. SC diesel yesterday was $2.31
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Just shows there's some fixin going on. SC diesel yesterday was $2.31
No different than most other "necessary for modern life" commodities. When was the last time you heard of any utility cutting executive compensation or going out of business? Same with the oil companies and distributors. All prices seem to jump immediately on just a rumor of a possible problem, but once the problem either doesn't materialize or is fixed, those higher prices never jump downward at the same rate they jumped upward, at least in my experience.
With my previous story about the BP refinery problem, it took less than 36 hours for prices to jump at least $0.75 at the pump once the word of the problem got out, and then jump again to as much as $1.00 over what it had been just before the problem. No shortages were reported anywhere in the five state area that comprises the region. When they got the affected unit back online last week, prices didn't budge for many days, then started the normal couple cents today, couple more cents tomorrow routine. As of today prices in my area are still around $0.30 above the pre-problem prices, even though the rest of the country has been experiencing price reductions during that same period of time and the real price here should be about $0.10 below the pre-problem price. So in other words, we are still paying a $0.40 premium over what the price should be. And in the not too distant future they will be shutting down to convert back to winter fuels, which should be cheaper, but if things follow the normal trajectory around here we will first be hit with another spike upward, before prices gradually drop back to where they should have been. It's just the way it is, and nothing is going to change. But it is fun to bitch about it, just like bitching about the weather. Btw, never met a poor manager or executive of an oil company, or a poor distributor, or a poor trader for that matter. No matter how low the price of crude drops, they all find a way to make excellent profits. Same goes for the folks involved with other monopolies and oligopolies, like the natural gas and electricity folks. It's just too bad the average person can't get guaranteed profits for whatever it is they do.
Jerry ;D
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http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/refined-products/rbob-gasoline.html (http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/refined-products/rbob-gasoline.html)
Legalized betting for the very smart or the clinically insane.
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Dayton Ohio August 1990. My how things change.
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Over here Reg Unleaded at BP, Texaco, Shell range at £1.08 to 1.10 per L. that puts it over $5.00 a gal. So if you plan to come over for a visit and do some riding be sure to add extra $$ for fuel ;)
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I sure hope that price has come down by now.
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Gas price average by state: low $1.57 gl - 2.78 gl high. National avg. is $1.91 gl.
Curses, the evil oil companies strike again!
http://www.gasbuddy.com/US (http://www.gasbuddy.com/US)
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Drove Dow to Baltimore MD today and gas was $1.75 a gallon - thirty cents cheaper than the $2.05 I had thought was a new low for my area - when I started the trip down.
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Undoubtedly another conspiracy that has nothing to do with supply or demand.....
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Paid $1.52 at a QT station in South Carolina on Wed.
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We're still over $3.00 a gallon for Premium. Week before last just as they announced on the news that oil prices are at their lowest in more than ten years they then announced that once again, two of the four California refineries went offline for unexpected maintenance, causing the Calif. prices to stay high. :nixweiss:
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Murphy Gas at Walmart $ 1.55/gal. Costco $ 1.52/gal. yesterday.
SC has some of the lowest gas prices in the country, that is because of out low gas taxes ( they say we have the lowest in the country ). ;D
Mike
:drink:
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Mike, just curious....what are you guys paying for diesel?
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Gas is cheaper in other places than it is here. Tallahassee is 1.75 to 1.85 for unleaded. Due to high taxes, El Nino, Global Warming, & conspiracies by the oil companies in collusion with the owners of the Quckie Marts, who may or may not be commies.
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Mike, just curious....what are you guys paying for diesel?
The norm here is $ 1.65/gal and the low is $ 1.56/gal.
94 Octane gas $ 1.72/gal low, norm $ 1.90/gal.
Mike
:drink:
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Paid $1.23 for regular today, I can't remember the last time it was that low.
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Paid $1.23 for regular today, I can't remember the last time it was that low.
Nice, Lowest here right now was $1.51 for regular. That might have changed in the last hour though.
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While the cheep gas might be nice, its killing the Economy in TX, MS, LA and to a lesser extent AL. In these area's alone 200,000 good paying jobs have been lost.
My Company has laid off 30,000 in the USA and another 50,000 people world wide. I have had my pay cut three times in 2015 (40% income loss) , and looking at a layoff around June.
Oil will go back up. My educated guess is in 18 to 24 months. Then the USA will have little to no drilling capacity, same with Brazil, Africa. Middle east will have us by the short strings. Expect close to 150 a barrel, with is around 4.50 a gallon. Expect 5 to 6 years for the USA to build back up its drilling companies.
This was brought on because the USA was in 2015 the top producer of Oil and of Gas....We are no long, and going down fast. Gulf of mexico is down to 26 rigs from 59 at the end of 2014.
Enjoy the cheep gas while you can.
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While the cheep gas might be nice, its killing the Economy in TX, MS, LA and to a lesser extent AL. In these area's alone 200,000 good paying jobs have been lost.
My Company has laid off 30,000 in the USA and another 50,000 people world wide. I have had my pay cut three times in 2015 (40% income loss) , and looking at a layoff around June.
Oil will go back up. My educated guess is in 18 to 24 months. Then the USA will have little to no drilling capacity, same with Brazil, Africa. Middle east will have us by the short strings. Expect close to 150 a barrel, with is around 4.50 a gallon. Expect 5 to 6 years for the USA to build back up its drilling companies.
This was brought on because the USA was in 2015 the top producer of Oil and of Gas....We are no long, and going down fast. Gulf of mexico is down to 26 rigs from 59 at the end of 2014.
Enjoy the cheep gas while you can.
Hope things go better for you, sounds like you are going through some tough times. Have watched this cycle more or less repeat since the 1970s. Have watched friends do very well & then get busted flat when oil cycles lower. It always does cycle lower, especially when all the brilliant economists (sarcasm) say oil price will never drop again because of....some economic BS or other fairy tales.
When oil price per barrel runs higher (demand vs lower supply) it is inevitable that media will report the horrific evil greed of the oil industry (for fun check oil company profits vs a number of other industries & see where they fall), then consumers will bitch & moan about the prices. Have seen this over & over & over & over. Especially when driving season occurs the bitching & moaning ramps up annually, for the USA that season begins late Spring & ends around Labor Day. It is useless to try to explain supply/demand/capacity/a la cart boutique formulations to most folks, they have more fun demagoguing the oil industry than actually paying attention to what is really causing price fluctuations. Therefore, for many, stereotyping is a real time saver. I noticed this first in the 1970s I worked as a $1.45/hour full service gas station attendant. People would curse at me & throw money on the ground while screaming at me about high gas prices as they drove off. Nowadays folks prefer to scream at the oil companies in part because the guy behind the counter possibly doesn't understand English anyway.
Iran is about to dump oil on the market & that will likely cause the barrel price to drop further. Stock market is a reflection of a portion of what is occurring. Other industries are also affected, some positively, others negatively.
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While the cheep gas might be nice, its killing the Economy in TX, MS, LA and to a lesser extent AL. In these area's alone 200,000 good paying jobs have been lost.
My Company has laid off 30,000 in the USA and another 50,000 people world wide. I have had my pay cut three times in 2015 (40% income loss) , and looking at a layoff around June.
Oil will go back up. My educated guess is in 18 to 24 months. Then the USA will have little to no drilling capacity, same with Brazil, Africa. Middle east will have us by the short strings. Expect close to 150 a barrel, with is around 4.50 a gallon. Expect 5 to 6 years for the USA to build back up its drilling companies.
This was brought on because the USA was in 2015 the top producer of Oil and of Gas....We are no long, and going down fast. Gulf of mexico is down to 26 rigs from 59 at the end of 2014.
Enjoy the cheep gas while you can.
dave, i think you are dead on! oil is a supply and demand deal. invest in your company while it is a cheap investment. good luck , with survival in the meantime. i have been nibbling at brazilian oil companies. they are really undervalued :2vrolijk_21:
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Problem with Investing in Brazilian oil companies now is if the Iranian oil drives the price per barrel further down those companies will be gone. Did an investment like that in the mid to late nineties. After several years and many promising events the companies went belly up. We lost the least out of the group of friends that invested and only because we invested the least. Some of my friends lost mid 6 figures. Ever since that we have been reluctant to jump in and no doubt have lost out on some great opportunities but we haven't lost either.
I look for oil to keep dropping the next few years or so. In the meantime Alabama is looking at a gas tax hike so our state intends to take some of the savings away.
I feel for all the companies in the US that are oil related. Going to be like Texas was in the early eighties. Some of the companies I made parts for in Hueston ended up tearing down a lot of their buildings to keep the tax base low and try to survive. Hope all those still in the oil industry make it through the upcoming bad times.
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Problem with Investing in Brazilian oil companies now is if the Iranian oil drives the price per barrel further down those companies will be gone. Did an investment like that in the mid to late nineties. After several years and many promising events the companies went belly up. We lost the least out of the group of friends that invested and only because we invested the least. Some of my friends lost mid 6 figures. Ever since that we have been reluctant to jump in and no doubt have lost out on some great opportunities but we haven't lost either.
I look for oil to keep dropping the next few years or so. In the meantime Alabama is looking at a gas tax hike so our state intends to take some of the savings away.
I feel for all the companies in the US that are oil related. Going to be like Texas was in the early eighties. Some of the companies I made parts for in Hueston ended up tearing down a lot of their buildings to keep the tax base low and try to survive. Hope all those still in the oil industry make it through the upcoming bad times.
that is exactly why you invest in the most solvent and the biggest in the business.i sure would hate to think i was investing a fringe oil company!! :'(
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GasBuddy today
Oklahoma City's cheapest gas was about $1.30, according to the website.
The nation's most expensive gas is found in California at $2.67 a gallon.
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GasBuddy today
Oklahoma City's cheapest gas was about $1.30, according to the website.
The nation's most expensive gas is found in California at $2.67 a gallon.
I filled up this morning for $1.45 per gallon. In 1973 I was 12 years old and pumping gas at a Texaco station. Can remember early that year before the oil embargo while "gas wars" were still going and regularly seeing gas in the mid to upper 20 cents per gallon. By year end I remember people driving off and not buying saying they'd never pay the 50 cents a gallon it had hit. I just looked it up and see and average cost for a gallon of regular that year was 39 cents.
$1.45 (that I spent for fuel this morning) of 2015 dollars equates to 27 cents of 1973 dollars according to a CPI calculator I use regularly. So today's fuel is the same price as it was in the "gas war" days prior to the Arab oil embargo. Granted, two years ago is was $4 locally and a lot more elsewhere. It's still a relatively volatile commodity. But I'm not complaining... :drink:
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I filled up this morning for $1.45 per gallon. In 1973 I was 12 years old and pumping gas at a Texaco station. Can remember early that year before the oil embargo while "gas wars" were still going and regularly seeing gas in the mid to upper 20 cents per gallon. By year end I remember people driving off and not buying saying they'd never pay the 50 cents a gallon it had hit. I just looked it up and see and average cost for a gallon of regular that year was 39 cents.
$1.45 (that I spent for fuel this morning) of 2015 dollars equates to 27 cents of 1973 dollars according to a CPI calculator I use regularly. So today's fuel is the same price as it was in the "gas war" days prior to the Arab oil embargo. Granted, two years ago is was $4 locally and a lot more elsewhere. It's still a relatively volatile commodity. But I'm not complaining... :drink:
i remember. i was 14 nearly 15 going on 16. how in the world was i going to afford to drive a cobra jet or a boss or a hemi. no, no, no, they cannot do this to me. ended up with a boss 302. was not a big block but way better than a vw i thought i was going to need to settle on. :nixweiss:
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i remember. i was 14 nearly 15 going on 16. how in the world was i going to afford to drive a cobra jet or a boss or a hemi. no, no, no, they cannot do this to me. ended up with a boss 302. was not a big block but way better than a vw i thought i was going to need to settle on. :nixweiss:
I remember that same anxiety. Was already working on a 66 El Camino that I was going to start driving (legally) when I turned 16. Had most of the parts for a 396 for it when gas hit 50 cents a gallon. It was hell thinking about going back to a small block :huepfenlol2: .
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I remember that same anxiety. Was already working on a 66 El Camino that I was going to start driving (legally) when I turned 16. Had most of the parts for a 396 for it when gas hit 50 cents a gallon. It was hell thinking about going back to a small block :huepfenlol2: .
when 1975 came the used car lots were full of those gas guzzling bosses, cobra jets, hemi and bbc. you could take your pick for around $800.00. nobody wanted em. if only i knew! :'(
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When i started school at South Dakota State, gas was around .99 a gallon. When i graduated in 2001 gas had sky rocketed ton$1.89ma gallon, I wasn't sure how I was going to afford gas living 150 miles from home.
Supershooter
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Today's Regular
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I do feel for those in the oil industry at the same time am selfish enough to enjoy the low prices.
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$1.45 (that I spent for fuel this morning) of 2015 dollars equates to 27 cents of 1973 dollars according to a CPI calculator I use regularly. So today's fuel is the same price as it was in the "gas war" days prior to the Arab oil embargo. Granted, two years ago is was $4 locally and a lot more elsewhere. It's still a relatively volatile commodity. But I'm not complaining... :drink:
But no Green or Blue Chip Stamps !! ;D
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We gave away bottle openers, glasses, maps, & ice scrapers with a fill up. Not all the time, but fairly regular.
Sold a few hundred of these, had one in the window:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aQPqaTwwL._SY355_.jpg)
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Sold a few hundred of these, had one in the window:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aQPqaTwwL._SY355_.jpg)
NICE!
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:'(
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But no Green or Blue Chip Stamps !! ;D
Oh lord I'd forgotten all about those. We did do green stamps. I can remember absolutely HATING those things. Be on my stool (you needed one when you were 11 or 12 or 13) under a car on the grease rack and that "ding ding" of the gas island would chime. Grab my milk carton (that you needed to all the way across the windshield to wash it or to check the oil on most pickup trucks) and head out to the gas island. Pump the gas, wash the glass, check the oil, do a quick vac of the carpets if they asked, check the tires and finish the gas fill. Then take the money or the credit card, go in, get the change or "run" the card machine, go back to the driver, and listen to the (always) little old lady bitch because I forgot her green stamps.
Pretty sure we stopped doing green stamps about 1974 or so.
There was the one good thing about being the kid on the gas island. The teenage girls that would never get out of their car. Tell them they've got a bulb out. But, so sorry, it appears not to be a bulb. Scoot over just a bit and I'll check the fuses under the dash for you. Crawl under, check "things" out, ah; the vistas on the gas island were sometimes grand.
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Oh lord I'd forgotten all about those. We did do green stamps. I can remember absolutely HATING those things. Be on my stool (you needed one when you were 11 or 12 or 13) under a car on the grease rack and that "ding ding" of the gas island would chime. Grab my milk carton (that you needed to all the way across the windshield to wash it or to check the oil on most pickup trucks) and head out to the gas island. Pump the gas, wash the glass, check the oil, do a quick vac of the carpets if they asked, check the tires and finish the gas fill. Then take the money or the credit card, go in, get the change or "run" the card machine, go back to the driver, and listen to the (always) little old lady bitch because I forgot her green stamps.
Pretty sure we stopped doing green stamps about 1974 or so.
There was the one good thing about being the kid on the gas island. The teenage girls that would never get out of their car. Tell them they've got a bulb out. But, so sorry, it appears not to be a bulb. Scoot over just a bit and I'll check the fuses under the dash for you. Crawl under, check "things" out, ah; the vistas on the gas island were sometimes grand.
While not as up close and personal, cleaning the windshield offered some great views. Had a really good view one day and the early 30's young women said, "What's wrong, is that pine tar." Oh those garter belt days :huepfenjump3:
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Kind of hard to feel sorry for California when they don't want any new oil drilling. But just as well for those who live there, if SoCal was cheep everyone would want to live there. Beautiful weather.
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Good Morning from SoCal !
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Good Morning from SoCal !
Nice photo Lou!
:2vrolijk_21:
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We may not have the best roads, best weather, and any/everything else.... but.... we do beat your fuel prices. ;) :D :D
(http://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=103223.0;attach=283009;image)
Down $1.25 since my post above in July...
:pumpkin:
Ride Safe,
Fired00d
:fireman:
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Good Morning from SoCal !
Beautiful pic Lou. :2vrolijk_21:
Take another one this coming Sunday morning and post a before and after. :huepfenlol2:
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:cherry:
"While not as up close and personal, cleaning the windshield offered some great views. Had a really good view one day and the early 30's young women said, "What's wrong, is that pine tar." Oh those garter belt days :huepfenjump3:"
:P Waaaaaaaaay back when I did a part time job at a Mobil station, this gal would show up occassionally wearing her bright red leather mini dress that had a huge zipper running right down the front from top to bottom. It had a zipper pull at each end, and she would have the top zipped down just enough for a good peek at her melons and the bottom zipped upward also.
I just about wore a hole thru her windshield and made sure to get all the bugs and stuff off of it...........but it took extra time you see. :nixweiss:
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:P Waaaaaaaaay back when I did a part time job at a Mobil station, this gal would show up occassionally wearing her bright red leather mini dress that had a huge zipper running right down the front from top to bottom. It had a zipper pull at each end, and she would have the top zipped down just enough for a good peek at her melons and the bottom zipped upward also.
I just about wore a hole thru her windshield and made sure to get all the bugs and stuff off of it...........but it took extra time you see. :nixweiss:
Sounds like a win-win and a match made in heaven: an exhibitionist woman and a voyeur guy (meaning all guys!). Something for everybody.
When I was in high school, every Friday the girls would dress up in their best dresses. Mini-skirts and garter belts were in. Didn't matter whether they crossed their legs or not; the skirts were so short that garter belts, bare thighs, and panties were visible. Made it hard to concentrate on school work.
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I had an English teacher that was a knockout and would ware mini skirts, garter belt, and stockings. She also wore low cut tops and push up bras. I sat directly in front of her desk and she would sit on the front of her desk. I was a junior at the time and I think I had sex with her every day, in my mind. There should have been a law that teachers shouldn't be that hot. I think the next year she was in Penthouse. :-*
Mike
:drink:
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MikeyTee,
We had a French (!) teacher like that; blond, slender but curvy, beautiful. Good thing I didn't know about her before I registered, or I would have signed up. Would have been a disaster one way or another.
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Right around a canbuck a litre here in nanaimo for regular
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99 Cent Gas May Be on Its Way
The International Energy Agency (IEA) February oil market report will put more downward pressure on crude prices just as the price of gasoline in some parts of the United States dips to above $1.10 a gallon. Prices are moving swiftly to below $1, a price last posted in the United States in December of 1993.
The new IEA report‘s authors wrote:
Having peaked, at a five-year high of 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2015, global oil demand growth is forecast to ease back considerably in 2016, to 1.2 mb/d, pulled down by notable slowdowns in Europe, China and the United States …
Crude trades at $30 per barrel now, and the forecasts of $20 have become more likely.
More than 50 stations in Oklahoma sell gas for under $1.15 per gallon. One station sells regular gas as $1.11, according to GasBuddy. That is against a national price for an average gallon of gas at $1.72. A month ago, that price was just short of $2.
AAA experts largely agree with the IEA assessment:
Domestic crude oil inventories reached their highest level for this time of year in nearly eight decades, and barring any major disruptions in supply, gas prices are likely to remain near their lowest price point since the Great Recession in the near term. Today’s average price of $1.74 per gallon reflects a savings of $1.07 per gallon versus the 2015 peak price reached this past June, and gas prices have fallen for 31 of the past 33 days. Pump prices are down six cents per gallon on the week, 24 cents per gallon on the month, and consumers are saving 44 cents per gallon versus this same date last year.
The gas price figures in some Oklahoma locations are not a surprise. The average price for a gallon of gas across that state is $1.37. The price is not much higher in Missouri ($1.41), Indiana ($1.45) and Kansas ($1.47).
Among the primary reasons gas prices are low in some areas is proximity to refineries. That, however, has been largely outweighed by state gas taxes and levies. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the national average of taxes per state is $0.48 per gallon. However, Oklahoma has taxes that are the fourth lowest among all states at $0.354. Missouri’s are the sixth lowest at $0.357. State gas taxes vary widely, because each state legislature has broad power to set them.
24/7 Wall St. has done an analysis of gas taxes in all 50 states. What it shows is that the marriage of low oil prices and state taxes have created an environment that soon could drive gas prices below $1.
By Douglas A. McIntyre
http://247wallst.com/energy-economy/2016/02/09/99-cent-gas-may-be-on-its-way/#ixzz3zjiObCRM (http://247wallst.com/energy-economy/2016/02/09/99-cent-gas-may-be-on-its-way/#ixzz3zjiObCRM)
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It's great to have low prices, but when the price for oil drops to $20/bbl, companies here (but not the Middle East countries) will stop drilling for new sources, wells currently in production will be shut down, and even refineries may quit. It's what happens when they can't sell the product at a price high enough to stay in business. The we'll be buying all our petroleum products from Saudis, Iranians, and ISIS.
The Saudis, for example, can make money when crude oil is selling for under $10/bbl, so they'll own the market at that price. OTOH, when all the American drilling crews have left the oil patch for non-oil jobs, and wells and refineries are closed (or sold to Iran by the Muslim-in-Chief), it will be very expensive to re-start them. And we will pay for it...in many unpleasant ways.
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From NBC7 News yesterday:
A report released this week by Consumer Watchdog that claims Exxon Mobil could have countered the loss in fuel by exporting more fuel from foreign refineries, driving up gas prices. NBC 7's Consumer Bob reports. (Published Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016)
California drivers pay more to fill their gas tank than drivers across the country, but Consumer Watchdog says that's because big oil companies manipulate the fuel supply.
The consumer group released a study this week saying drivers spent 2015 paying much more for gasoline than other driver because of a "mystery ship" owned by Exxon Mobile. .
When the Exxon refinery exploded last February in Torrance, it reduced the capacity of supply in Southern California. The Consumer Watchdog study finds Exxon Mobil could have increased its supply by transporting fuel from out-of-state refineries, even refineries in foreign countries. But what about the damaged refinery in the Los Angeles area?
"What this report shows is that Exxon Mobil doesn't even need that refinery," said gas industry analyst Charles Langley. "They have refineries all over the world that can produce high quality California gasoline and import it."
However, the Consumer Watchdog study claims that instead of replenishing the fuel, Exxon "hid" one of its oil tankers near Singapore. There are two refineries there that can produce California blended gas.
Instead, the report claims Exxon moved the ship around for 70 days and made no attempt to bring fuel to California. When it did arrive, on one occasion the ship was empty, and on a second visit, it stopped in a Los Angeles port and then delivered its gas to Florida.
Langley says that is done to manipulate the market, to create panic and raise prices.
"If they can restrict supply the price goes up and they make more money than when there is an abundant supply of gasoline," said Langley.
Exxon Mobil spokesman Todd Spitler told the Associate Press and Los Angeles Times, "Exxon Mobil rejects these allegations and is committed to the highest standards of business conduct, has operated responsibly and in strict compliance with all laws.
Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Blaming-Exxon-Ship-For-Higher-Gas-Prices-368258471.html#ixzz3zlwYbAur
Follow us: @nbcsandiego on Twitter | NBCSanDiego on Facebook
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It's SoCal to pay more for everything so we can have a piece of the lifestyle. I rode yesterday to the beach in 80 degree weather and woke up to this in the morning. Now its off to work to pay I go.
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Nice pic Doc :2vrolijk_21:
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It's great to have low prices, but when the price for oil drops to $20/bbl, companies here (but not the Middle East countries) will stop drilling for new sources, wells currently in production will be shut down, and even refineries may quit. It's what happens when they can't sell the product at a price high enough to stay in business. The we'll be buying all our petroleum products from Saudis, Iranians, and ISIS.
The Saudis, for example, can make money when crude oil is selling for under $10/bbl, so they'll own the market at that price. OTOH, when all the American drilling crews have left the oil patch for non-oil jobs, and wells and refineries are closed (or sold to Iran by the Muslim-in-Chief), it will be very expensive to re-start them. And we will pay for it...in many unpleasant ways.
That has all been true for many years, and the smart way to deal with it isn't to go nuts expanding drilling in this country to make a fast buck. We've been through these cycles before when world oil prices go up high enough for people in this country to start seeing dollars signs flash before their eyes and they decide to expand domestic production. This time, as in previous times, the winners will be the folks who took the quick early profits, and the losers will be those who loaned them all the money as well as all the people who moved their entire families to one of the boom towns for jobs that have now disappeared and those who had jobs in supporting industries. IMHO a smarter approach would be to balance domestic output at a level that wouldn't cause OPEC and others to retaliate and drive oil prices low enough to put the domestic companies out of business. But, that would take a different system other than the unfettered capitalism model driven by short term greed that keeps giving us the boom and bust cycles, where a few get very wealthy and most take it in the ear.
JMHO - Jerry
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It's SoCal to pay more for everything so we can have a piece of the lifestyle. I rode yesterday to the beach in 80 degree weather and woke up to this in the morning. Now its off to work to pay I go.
I'm with Doc anytime you can live where you can ride everyday prices will be high.
Great photo Lou
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The "sunshine tax" Jim. :o
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That has all been true for many years, and the smart way to deal with it isn't to go nuts expanding drilling in this country to make a fast buck. We've been through these cycles before when world oil prices go up high enough for people in this country to start seeing dollars signs flash before their eyes and they decide to expand domestic production. This time, as in previous times, the winners will be the folks who took the quick early profits, and the losers will be those who loaned them all the money as well as all the people who moved their entire families to one of the boom towns for jobs that have now disappeared and those who had jobs in supporting industries. IMHO a smarter approach would be to balance domestic output at a level that wouldn't cause OPEC and others to retaliate and drive oil prices low enough to put the domestic companies out of business. But, that would take a different system other than the unfettered capitalism model driven by short term greed that keeps giving us the boom and bust cycles, where a few get very wealthy and most take it in the ear.
JMHO - Jerry
All true, and really causes a lot of heartache for many. But who decides what the balanced output should be? The Soviets, and many others, have tried the centrally planned economies, which always go straight into the crapper. And when you put someone in charge of deciding, they end up with insider information they can sell to give the early birds the advantage. That's "crony capitalism", which leads to product shortages and "companies" like Solyndra. Yes, the free market, like democracy, is the worst of all possible systems--except for all others.
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I seem to remember in the late 70's there was a gas shortage with tankers lined up all over. And people were trading in the big cars for near nothing trying to buy the import cars of the trucks carrying them but most were pre sold.
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I seem to remember in the late 70's there was a gas shortage with tankers lined up all over. And people were trading in the big cars for near nothing trying to buy the import cars of the trucks carrying them but most were pre sold.
Yep, back when we let the Saudis plan oil production for us. I remember long lines and alternate days at the pumps.
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It's great to have low prices, but when the price for oil drops to $20/bbl, companies here (but not the Middle East countries) will stop drilling for new sources, wells currently in production will be shut down, and even refineries may quit. It's what happens when they can't sell the product at a price high enough to stay in business. The we'll be buying all our petroleum products from Saudis, Iranians, and ISIS.
The Saudis, for example, can make money when crude oil is selling for under $10/bbl, so they'll own the market at that price. OTOH, when all the American drilling crews have left the oil patch for non-oil jobs, and wells and refineries are closed (or sold to Iran by the Muslim-in-Chief), it will be very expensive to re-start them. And we will pay for it...in many unpleasant ways.
They were sitting down long before 30 a Barrel. Gulf of Mexico had 59 rigs drilling for oil December 2014. Today there are 20, with more shutting down in the next three months. Oil companies are not turning their 7% profit, but rather a loss. So they do not pay some one to drill for them. Lots more shut down in the Dakotas with more to come. Over 100,000 people laid off, mostly jobs that pay 50K or more a year.
Saudi is pumping over quota as is much of OPEC as they want our drilling out of business. The USA just helped then buy lifting sanctions on Iran and letting them flood the market with more oil.
Very soon we will be dependent on the Middle east again for all our fuel.
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California gas prices have gone up, even though oil prices are down.... http://www.ocregister.com/articles/prices-697048-refinery-gas.html
Happens in Calif. every time the oil prices go down....the refineries start shutting down for unscheduled maint. until the prices go back up.
On the news yesterday, they said that gas prices in San Diego went up 35 cents a gallon over night...5 cents a gallon more than the 30 cents a gallon they projected.... http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/feb/25/ca-gas-prices-expected-to-jump-30-cents-by-weekend/
Today's Los Angeles Times.... http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gasoline-manipulation-20150706-story.html
It's been in the news that the federal government and the Calif. government are investigating why the Calif. refineries go off line for unscheduled maint. every time the prices drop a bit. Here's an article from Sacramento Bee nine months ago.... http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article20524758.html
And from four months ago.... http://www.capitolwatchdog.org/article/big-oil-gives-ca-energy-commission-and-californians-finger-0
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On the way up in NM too but pretty good compared to some.
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Yep, that's real low compared to us Simon. Like Lou says.....it's the price we pay to play. :divers009:
Went for a ride today....I'll post those pics in another thread....here.... http://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?topic=99194.msg1369499#msg1369499