Gas+oil+momopoly+greed=US oil companies

MikePA · Apr 11, 2006

We have one person (besides me) that gets it. 
It's much more fun to blame the evil oil companies and imagine that single person (or is it the TriLateral Commission) who is setting the price for fuel. Oh my gosh, gotta run.....black helicopters are swooping in...gotta finish typing this messa................... /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Stevie Wonder - "When you believe in things that you don’t understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain’t the way"

snoboy · Apr 11, 2006

( Our lifestyle is the problem. We live in huge houses. We like to commute an hour to work from the suburbs; driving huge V8 vehicles when small micro cars will do.
We'd rather market 500 hp. pickup trucks than develop public transportation.

We are a wasteful society. We are around 2% of the worlds population, yet we consume 30% of the planet's resources.
We're addicted to cheap petroleum like crack cocaine.

We need to learn to do with less or this learning curve that we're on is going to get quite painful. )

Bates YOU lead the charge and quit using WE so much. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

UncleBuck01 · Apr 12, 2006

U.S. gasoline supply falls for a sixth week: Energy Dept

By Myra P. Saefong
Last Update: 10:35 AM ET Apr 12, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Energy Department said motor gasoline inventories fell 3.9 million barrels for the week ended April 7 to total 207.9 million. Supplies have lost a total of 18 million barrels in six weeks and are 1.9% below the year-ago level, the government data showed. Crude stocks rose 3.2 million barrels, to total 346 million barrels -- 7.8% above the year-ago level and at their highest level in almost eight years. Distillate supplies fell 4.2 million barrels to 117.4 million. They're 12.3% above the year-ago level. May crude rose 47 cents to $69.45 a barrel. May unleaded gas rose 2.36 cents to a seven-month high of $2.078 a gallon and May heating oil added 3.15 cents to $1.987 a gallon. 

Charlie in tx
tell me, since you are one of the enlightened ones who get it, what do you think of the the article above, crude stocks up to 8yr highs, but gasoline supplies dropping last six weeks, think the good old boys at the oil companies have decided to slow down the production of gas at their refineries ( just in time for the summer driving season /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif ), think by doing that gas prices will go up ? NO conspiracy theory, no black helicopters , just the facts. Maybe I'm just too simple to get it so please help me try and get it.
Here is a piece from one of my previous posts when someone tried to make me feel bad about those abused working slobs who run the helpless oil companies because the tree huggers will not allow them to build any new refineries

 From 1975 to 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received only one permit request for a new refinery. And in March, EPA approved Arizona Clean Fuels’ application for an air permit for a proposed refinery in Arizona. Also, during those years oil companies were applying for – and receiving – permits to modify and expand their existing refineries. Now do you blame the tree huggers for putting fear into the hearts of the oil industry or do you blame the oil companies FOR NOT EVEN TRYING

another example. A congressional investigation uncovered internal memos (those paper trails, similiar to the ones that sunk the tobacco companies)) written by the major oil companies operating in the U.S. talking about their successful strategies to maximize profits by forcing independent refineries out of business, resulting in tighter refinery capacity. From 1995-2002, 97% of the more than 920,000 barrels of oil per day of capacity that have been shut down were owned and operated by smaller, independent refiners. These were established refineries, they needed no "NEW PERMITS" to be built Were this capacity to be in operation today, refiners could have used it to fight these drastic price increases we get when the oil industry has a anxiety attack.

 Congressional hearings

P.S. MikePA since you a--/u/me (assume) I'm into black helicopters, take it from me they only go after BIG fish, people like me and you are not worth THE PRICE OF FUEL for their helicopters, thats one good thing about rising gas prices. right? /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif just kidding /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif "you all have a nice day"

Buck

ducati996 · Apr 12, 2006

I would say UncleBuck is the enlightened one here....right on the money - nice job /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

RalphVa · Apr 13, 2006

What's driving up prices are crude oil prices. What's driving those up are demand from China and India and CONTINUING large demand here. Oil companies are generally composed of very honest folks who aren't making much money/gallon on gasoline shipped from the refineries. Even a large oil company like ExxonMobil or Shell have a very small amount of the total market demand. No one company can set prices. They're highly competitive.

We need more diesel and hybrid vehicles, especially ones in smaller sizes. Don't get 4wd when 2wd will do, etc.

Right now, most of our pickups trucks used by common people are very unwieldy things. You have to be 6 to 7' tall to load or unload them from the side and need stepladders to get into the backs or into the side doors unless they happen to be a few of the 2wd smaller trucks with car-like heights. These are not very practical vehicles, just what are being produced because mom and pop and grandpa and grandma have been used to buying them for years. These beasts are guzzling our gasoline like there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is coming, with prices going even higher. Let's see some more practical vehicles, GM and Ford and Toyota and Nissan and Dodge.

One example of a vehicle out of its time is our church van. Gets 8 mpg. Should be a hybrid that we plug into an electric plug for when we're not driving it 5 days out of 7. The mileage could be increased easily to about 13-15 mpg with a diesel and probably to 30 mpg or more with a plug-in hybrid.

Ralph

beenthere · Apr 13, 2006

When we stop buying all the gas available and then some, the price will come down. But, in fact, we don't buy less when the price goes up.

In addition, just from my viewpoint if nothing else, the enviro's have made our cars into gas guzzle'rs and won't let oil wells to be drilled off shore from CA. There is oil there, and many other places. But the bottom line, for me, is gas is still cheap compared to our buying power. Simple supply and demand thing.

I don't doubt one bit that the oil companies have the supply thing figured out, but I also believe that there enough companies that compete for the gas business that they keep each other in line, so to speak. Make good profits, and we should let 'em spend it on new wells.

Just my take. It's still cheaper now than it was in the 50's. I'd like to see it cheaper too. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

dmccarty · Apr 18, 2006

beenthere,

There are a couple of things happening to drive up the price of fuel.

Demand. If it cost $70 a barrel to buy the raw product it gets passed on to us.

Its spring time and refineries shutdown for maintence thus limiting supply.

Congress in the past mandated that gas meet certain air quality standards. There are two ways this has been done. One is to use ethanol and the other MTBE. There was a big battle over the use of MTBE. I don't think it should have been used since it is soluable in water and there has been a fair amount of ground water contamination from this stuff. The oil companies did not want to use MTBE but to meet the standard they used it. The lawyers have been wanting to sue the oil companies over MTBE but since its use was mandated by Congress the companies have had some protection.....

Congress has taken away the protection starting in May. So the oil companies are not using MTBE anymore and need enthanol to meet the air quaility standard. There has presented a couple of problems.

One is that there is a roughly 30% shortage of ethanol to make the same amount of gas that used MTBE which decreases the supply side at the pumps.

For some reason ethanol is harder to ship. It has to go by truck or train whereas MTBE could be sent by pipe line. Truck/Train limits the volume of product shipped and that diesel fuel costs money and effects the overal supply....

Later,
Dan

TOMLESCOEQUIP · Apr 23, 2006

( Our lifestyle is the problem. We live in huge houses. We like to commute an hour to work from the suburbs; driving huge V8 vehicles when small micro cars will do.
We'd rather market 500 hp. pickup trucks than develop public transportation.

We are a wasteful society. We are around 2% of the worlds population, yet we consume 30% of the planet's resources.
We're addicted to cheap petroleum like crack cocaine.

We need to learn to do with less or this learning curve that we're on is going to get quite painful. ) Fuel is just now getting even.......... In 1976, after graduating from high school, I bought a 1 year old 1/2 ton GMC pickup with 10,000 miles on it for $2695.00 out the door. Gas was then about 49.9 at the cheapie stations, and 55.9 at the name brand places. I remember going off to college that fall and gas was going up to 65.9 at some stations & I wondered how I was going to be able to afford the commute back & forth from home to school. Looking forward to 2006, a 1 year old 1/2 ton pickup with 10.000 miles on it( a bare bones model) is going for 16-18 thousand if you can find one at all. That's an increase of about 6X on the truck price in 30 years. Considering the inflation in our economy, gas has really been a real bargain for a long long time and is now just getting in line price wise with what everything else costs us. I don't want to pay it either, but I think the higher fuel prices are here to stay.

EastTexFrank · Apr 23, 2006

I spent my whole adult life working in the oilfield and I get tired of hearing about the big bad oil companies so I stopped trying to explain the economics (and politics) of supply and demand.

One interesting thing though, I was watching TV a few weeks ago and they were interviewing a gas station operator on the price of gas. He explained how he set his prices. How he checked every morning on the internet with his distributer's website to see what gas was costing that day, he drove around the neighbourhood to see what his competition was charging and then he set his prices. It was only then that I realized what he was doing. He was charging repacement cost for the gas he already had in his storage tanks, not his actual cost of delivery. That explained a lot of things. It explained why in a rising market, the price rises to the consumer were almost instantaneous and why in a falling market the price at the pump lagged days if not weeks behind the falling supply price. He had to get rid of the high dollar gas in his tanks before reducing his price to reflect the falling supply price. Remember that the majority of the gas station are owned by the major oil companies but are leased to individuals. The companies build the stations to ensure an oulet for their product but do not set the prices charged at the pump. They control the price only as far as the distributor and in most of cases, not even that far because there are so many independent distributors. Realisically, they only have control until it leaves their refinery. If you think you are being ripped off, it's most likely by your local gas station operator and not the big bad oil companies.

Big oil companies are such an easy target. The worrying thing though is that the oil producing countries that the oil companies buy the oil from have seen that $60/bbl oil hasn't hurt the economies of the west so far so don't expect to see any major drop in oil prices until it does.

cp1969 · Apr 23, 2006

Mmmmm....sort of.

The problem with letting "Big Bad Oil" companies off the hook is that, for some strange reason, they're turning record profits right now.

That money didn't just appear in their bottom line out of thin air. It came from your pocket and mine.