Sky High Gasoline

“Boy, wouldn't it be convienent if being gouged by the oil companies was really the cause of high oil prices, then we could all agree to regulate them and have our nice low gas prices. Until everyone understands that the oil companies aren't gouging anyone, and we get to the heart of the matter (limited refining capacity), we are going to have this problem.”

“Who owns the refineries?”

“Hey, limit supply....drive up demand..”

“Must Hike - The oil companies own the refineries, but the libs are always making it impossible to build more, or expand the capacity of the plants currently in operation. Add to that the fact that there are 22 different gas formulas mandated in different locations and at different times of the year, and you have a real problem... The reason it begins spiking in April is because the oil companies have to switch over to refining for the summer gas blends, this severely cuts back on refining capacity as the plants have to essentially retool to make different gas. If the oil companies could make more gas and sell it at lower prices they would, why, because they sell more gas (because people aren't conserving)and the difference is more than offset....”

“It doesn't work that way laqtis, people start conserving gas when the price goes up (because of limited supply). So the oil companies make less profit, not more. They want to sell more gas, it's a volume driven business, not a price driven business. It's gasoline not fine art.”

“uh....when adjusted for inflation gas prices are the same as say 1955, according to a report on the news last night. Gas prices in 1981 were the highest at $2.81 (adj).

This is one where I can't go with the flow with y'all. Stop whining. It isn't that bad. There are other reasons for this rise in prices.

People pay ridiculous amts for a cup of coffee at Starbucks and bottled water. Gas prices go up 10-15 cents and the sky is falling.”

“and compared to Europe, we're getting the stuff CHEAP!

and, bison's got the story pretty much dead on there. We could get all the crude there ever will be outta Iraq or anywhere else, but until we could refine it in larger capacities, it wouldn't really affect the pump price.”

“I still see the same, if not more, amount of SUV's/Trucks/Vans on the road. I live in the Motor City, ain't nobody parking there rides, so I'll have to kindly disagree with ya, bison. There's no race to the hybred, or anything silly like that happening here.

As long as the banks give credit to anyone, people continue to consume; our economy depends on this to succeed. Americans will just continue to charge there lifestyle and let tomorrow deal with it. After all, that is the American Way, no?”

“Laqtis people have to drive to work, the grocery store etc... and they're always going to do that... But this summer less people will travel if gas prices are high, think about it from a business perspective. There is a family that want's to go on vacation to florida, they'll use so many gallons of gas. You can charge to make a $.05 a gallon profit and the family takes the vacation and you make your profit. But if you decided to raise price soley through profit and say make a $.20 per gallon profit, then that family doesn't take that vacation, they go 10 miles down the road to the lake instead... And you make no profit at all! Volume, Volume, Volume... like I said it's not fine art, it's gasoline.”

“I was planning on driving to far off places this summer to go backpacking. Now I will probably stick to Shenandoah and other parts in VA, PA and WVA. I may take one trip to the smokies or Black mountains. Can't afford it when gas prices are more than $2.00 a gallon. I heard estimates of $2.50 per gallon on regular come July. Uggg”

“I think we should dip into the reserve.”

“Exactly Nash, the gas companies don't want that, they want to be able to charge low gas prices so that you will drive farther and buy more gas.”

“Won't do anything, like roam said you could ship all the crude over that you wanted (or take it out of the reserve) but if you can't refine it, you can't get it to the pump.”

“It's your fault, all of you. You burn too much gas. Had Cheney's tax been passed ,you would have less dependence on the stuff now, because it would have cost more.
I remember one of the first things Bush said after being installed. In so many words he said " Americans have learned to like their big and comfortable cars, and they should and will be able to have and drive them."
You followed his instructions didn't you?”

“i dont remember that , uncliff.

laqtus mentioned no "race to the hybred".

you can't "make" a company research something. you can't force someone to invent anything. it's crazy to even think about. at some point gas will be gone, it's finite. at that time, the market will find a new way. inventions and technology develope through market forces. when we need it, we'll invent it.

gas prices r high in summer....every year. last year(SOMEONE DO A SEARCH) there was a thread on here about how horrible gas prices were and it's all bush's fault. every winter there's a thread about how high heating oil is and it's all bush's fault. 1981 prices were way higher, as several have noted.

if i was gonna take a trip, where i used 200 gallons of gas round trip. the price is say .15 per gal higher than normal. $30 more. i can handle that.

get your own stupid yugo and stay out of my way. the dood who hit me head on in a teeny gas-saving isuzu truck wished he had a big 4x4 like i had.......4 days later when he woke up, that is.....”

“and 3 times every week in physical therapy for the next 2 years....”

“If every other person in China had a two story 4x4 how much would gas cost?...........answer; nothing it would all be gone.”

“so what?

if it was all gone, the market would come up with a viable solution. what are you scared of?
don't panic......stop listening to the doom-n-gloomers of the left and think for yourself....”

“$2.25/gal?


Thanks "W,"
way to go, Dick!”

“Strat,I don't burn enough gas to worry a bit, but the fact that nothing(tax wise) is being done to forward other transportation proves to me that the power that be have to have the same control of the new tech as they have the auto as we know it.I am far more conservative than any republican will every be.As many Chinnese business people,I truely believe China is a capitalist country and the US is a communist.Tax laws are so car and travel friendly it's as though the tax payer foots the bill for half the expense and thus the proliferation of the iron monsters.”

“We wouldn't need additional refining capacity if it weren't for 14 mpg SUVs.”

“but since when is it gubments role to decide what we should drive, research, invent?

you are missing my point, uncliff.

why is it gubments role?

it's not.

besides, gas companies only make a couple pennys per gallon. most of the price we pay on a gallon is tax. fact”

“it's not gov'ts role, but in the past, where the gov't has taken a lead good things have come from research they spurred along, be it with tax credit programs (albeit subject to criticism) or with big orders and demands for smaller, faster, more efficient, higher capacity computers.

Gov't could play a role in leading the auto makers to make viable alternantive fuel vehicles, if they chose to do so.

Not saying they should but they could if they wanted to.

The market will eventually do that by itself, especially if fule prices are viewed as simply to high to bear.”

“Look, I can copy and clip!


**************************
So it's getting to be the same old scenario. OPEC (for those of you who went to government schools, that's the Middle Eastern oil cartel,) cuts production or raises prices on crude oil, and immediately politicians start complaining that it will drive up the cost of gasoline. Getting in on the action last week was President Bush, who expressed disappointment with the decision. Of course, the price of gasoline has become an election-year issue, with the Kerry campaign jumping into the fray. sKerry says the United States should do what Clinton did...send the energy secretary to the Middle East with a tin cup and beg for lower prices.

Anyway, OPEC has hit back over the issue, and they nailed the issue cold. The Saudi foreign affairs adviser, Adel Al-Jubeir said that the lack of refining capacity in the United States was the reason gas prices were rising. "There has not been a refinery built in America in the last 20 years. So if you produce more crude oil but you can't refine it, it's not going to translate into gasoline." He also said that environmental restrictions requiring special blends sold in different cities was driving up the price. "Unless the U.S. begins to simplify this area, and unless the U.S. deals with its refining shortage, there will always be a problem with gasoline."

So there you have it. We've told you before: the hysteria over gas prices is a basic supply and demand issue. Unless the anti-capitalistic environmentalists get out of the way and allow more refineries to be built, you will always have a shortage, and prices will increase during peak driving seasons.

And there's nothing Senator Kerry or President Bush can do about it.

*************************

What would the well-educated voter know? Well ... here's a partial list of the reasons for high gas prices.

-There is a higher demand for gas in the U.S. American consumers are using more gas this year than they have in many previous years, even with the high prices.
-Environmental regulations lower the supply base of gasoline available to consumers. Oil refineries have to switch production at this time of year to boutique gas blends for specific geographical regions. This means that if there is a shortage driving prices up in one region supplies can't be shipped in from another region to meet demand ... wrong blend.
-We have about one-half the number of oil refineries in the United States that we had 30 years ago. The last time a new refinery opened for business was in 1976.
-There is an unexpected high demand for petroleum in China. Some think that China may be buying huge supplies to build a strategic reserve.
-Saudi Arabia has cut production. There is speculation that Saudi Arabia is recognizing that its reserves of crude oil are running out. Saudi production may never again reach previous highs.
-The gas prices we face right now are not record high prices. In the early 1980s a gallon of gasoline cost about $2.90. That's adjusted for inflation, of course, but so is your income. Tough for government school graduates to understand, I know.
-Now .. if you are a consumer aware of the foregoing facts, how likely is it that you're going to nod your head in agreement when John Heinz Kerry starts blaming Bush for the current high prices?”

““I think the president ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say, ‘We expect you to open your spigots.’ … The president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price.”
-- Gov. George W. Bush in 2000 source”

“You'd just have got smaller cars by now if it were more expensive...duh.”

“May 9, 2001 NY Times Archive

The Unrefined Truth

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Gasoline prices are rising again, and the administration is rushing to turn this into another argument for its drill-and-burn energy strategy. But a look at the causes of the current gasoline shortage actually suggests a quite different moral: namely, that conservation ought to be a major element in our energy strategy, and that lack of conservation is a large part of what we've been doing wrong.

First things first: This year's gasoline price spike has nothing to do with a shortage of crude oil. Even if we had already punched the Alaskan tundra and the ocean floor off Florida full of holes, we'd still be in the same fix. The binding constraint right now is the nation's limited capacity to refine crude oil into gasoline.

Why is refining capacity inadequate? No new refineries have been built in this country for 20 years, a point emphasized with obvious relish by Dick Cheney. His implicit subtext, of course, is that it's the fault of environmentalist types who stood in the oil industry's way. That must be the story, right?

Wrong. It's true that environmental rules have somewhat crimped the production of our existing refineries. The problem is not so much the strictness of the regulations as their lack of consistency: each region has its own rules — like the insistence of Midwestern states that gasoline include corn-derived ethanol — fragmenting the nation's production. But the reason the oil industry didn't build any new refineries for two decades was that they weren't needed. In fact, right up until last year oil refining was a persistently depressed business, plagued by overcapacity.

Here's what happened: In the wake of the energy crisis in the 1970's, ordinary people in the United States began conserving energy — not as a "sign of personal virtue," as Mr. Cheney sneeringly puts it, but because they wanted to save money. Cars, in particular, became much more fuel-efficient. Meanwhile the oil industry was subject to "refinery creep," the tendency of refining capacity to grow through incremental improvements even when no new refineries are built. The result was excess capacity and squeezed margins, right up to the late 1990's.

What finally brought us up against capacity constraints was a surge in demand that was partly due to the economic boom of the later Clinton years, but mainly due to the renewed enthusiasm of Americans for huge, gas-guzzling vehicles — an enthusiasm, er, fueled by cheap gas. In 1998 gasoline was cheaper compared with overall consumer prices than ever before in U.S. history — 60 percent cheaper than it was in 1981. The nation rushed out to buy ever-bigger S.U.V.'s — and then suddenly discovered that we had run out of refining capacity. Refiners weren't frustrated by rules that prevented them from building new facilities; they were simply caught by surprise.

You have to bear this history in mind when parsing Mr. Cheney's recent speeches. To listen to him, you would imagine that we live in a country in which powerful political forces oppose energy production and preach a return to the dark ages. "To speak exclusively of conservation," Mr. Cheney declared in one speech, "is to duck the tough issues . . . it is not a sufficient basis — all by itself — for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." In another speech he ridiculed unspecified types for "saying to the American people that you have to live in the dark, turn out all of the lights." The story according to Mr. Cheney, in other words, is that we have an energy shortage because extreme conservationists prevented us from developing the supply capacity that serious people knew we needed.

Need I point out that this, like so much of what one hears from this administration, is a cynical misrepresentation? I defy Mr. Cheney to come up with examples of influential people who "speak exclusively of conservation," let alone anyone who says to the American people that they have to live in the dark. In fact, hardly any important politicians have spoken about conservation at all — never mind exclusively — this past decade.

We will need to build more refineries — and more power plants, and pipelines, and so on. But it is ludicrous to suggest that our current energy woes are the result of too much emphasis on conservation. It would be closer to the truth to say that we are in trouble now because our politicians haven't dared even use the word.”

“We wouldn't need additional refining capacity if it weren't for 14 mpg SUVs.

***groan***”

“Can you refute that?”

“Did no one pay attention in the '70's?”

“Hee hee, all those SUV drivers are crying their eyes out. I've got a few friends that drive SUV's....bought them a few years ago due to the craze. Now they're regretting their decision.

I've no problem if someone bought those SUV's for work...a necessity. But about 90% of those cars/trucks never leave the asphalt.”

“Right on, stanlee.



We up in here in D-Town, only gots more fore ya. We got 3 years of Bigger and Better SUV's stacked, racked and ready to go!



CHARGE!!!!!!”

“As ong as people continue to pay the prices and not take any action to drastically cut gas use, the companies will continue to raise prices as much as they can.

An organized boycott for a couple of weeks would change their tunes.
Unfortunately, Americans will not make any sacrifices to better their posiitions.

Thats the irony of all this. Once the public says STOP! and refuses to pay, the prices will come down and the politicians will change their tunes.

In France (oops dirty word), and some other countries, they have nationwide boycotts and strikes to force change, and they win.

Can't blame the pols for this, Americans should look in the mirror if they want some one to blame.”

“"Hee hee, all those SUV drivers are crying their eyes out. I've got a few friends that drive SUV's....bought them a few years ago due to the craze. Now they're regretting their decision."
stanlee
03:36:20 PM
04/14/04

I'm not crying my eyes out, my SUV gets excellent gas mileage, I don't get why others don't... Strange thing is my Blazer's mpg rating is 17 for highway, but I get 24-25.”

“I'm not chinese and I just sold all of my cars and bought new sandals. I'm writing $9,234.23 off my income tax for sandals(I bought 125 pair).I haven't figured my fuel expense yet,but it'll be; cliff bars @$1.37 x 421= 576.77. Wait a minute,I'm going to get my car back it was cheaper than this damn walking.
What is standard sandal mileage?”

“Violin, nice try at reversing the burden of proof. Why don't you put forth your statistics that show that the SUV craze has hog-tied the refining industry. And make sure those statistics take into account the steadily increasing number of cars/trucks on the road, and the steadily increasing number of miles driven per year per individual, too, mmmmkay?

p.s. Why do you always think your logical fallacies will confound thinking people? It's laughable. That's not to say you're wrong (so as not to bias your response), but that your history of "argument" (using the term loosely) is full of theatrical tricks.....”

“Anyone who tries to defend todays' consumtion has to have smelled too much exhaust.In a hundred years the history books will speak of the age of the auto as if it were another dark age. Doubters to your knees on the driveway in worship of the Iron Devil.”

“why do you hate drivers?”

“Many years ago I flew small air craft.Many times I flew while using drugs. Looking down at the streets of LA often was confusing,because from the air I got the impression that cars owned the place and the human being were there to maintain and feed the cars.The humans would build houses for their cars right in their houses.They built roads,lots of roads and lots of parking lots and even had big pictures of cars on sign boards next to the roads.The cars weren't nice to the humans though, they spit smoke all over the humans could hardly see where they were going in their cars.Sometimes the cars would fight by running into each other and throw dead humans all over the streets.All of these things made me dislike cars,so I listened to Frank Zappa music and didn't use cars.I do drive cars now,but as little as possible to survive. I have never said a pyayer to a car like many people do.”

“$1.899 for regular here in Columbus. It's up from $1.729 yesterday...boy do I wish I bought gas yesterday--I was waiting for the Wednesday low and didn't get it.”

“"I'm not crying my eyes out, my SUV gets excellent gas mileage, I don't get why others don't... Strange thing is my Blazer's mpg rating is 17 for highway, but I get 24-25."- Bison

One of my friend's friend basically said the same thing. He says his 9 year old 4Runner have great gas mileage....says he get about 24mpg hi-way. Nobody believes him. :o)

Not calling you a liar Bison.”

“Stanlee,

A lot of it is determined by whether or not the SUV's front axle is completely disengaged when in 2WD and whether or not the SUV has a decent overdrive. My father's Chevy pickup truck has the Corvette LT1 engine and gets approx. 28 miles to the gallon highway while my Wrangler gets around 20 with a straight 6. :\ Based on the profile and size of each vehicle, I'd have to say that the pickup is even pushing more air than the Wrangler.”

“Stanlee,

I have no idea why it's gets such good mileage, but I keep a running log (a good way to tell if a problem's cropping up) and that's what it gets. And the real kicker is it still gets that mileage at 150,000 miles.”

“Cool guys....now don't go buying those huge Hummers. Gawd, how many mpg do those monsters get?...14mpg?”

“Went down .09 since yesterday...guess that's a little better...would still like to see it go back to $1.469”

“paid 1.59 today...ahh nice to be in GA...correct me if I am wrong but GA has one of the lowest gas taxes in the country...and you know what...We also have alot better roads than alot of the country i have been to...thats funny especially when our gas tax pays for roads...”

“don't worry so much about gas prices for your car. worry about the price of Liquid Natural Gas for your furnace this winter. It isn't going to be as easy to get as crude until Australia builds its extracters.”

“Coucou!
Alors pourquoi le nom "LaBastille" name?? Es-tu alle en France pour etre un "fan" de ce monument?!?!
Sinon, d'ou es-tu, qu'est que tu fais et est-ce que au moins tu parles Francais??? Es-tu deja alle en France???”

“well?????”

“I had the good fortune to get into a buying group for Propane this year and paid a mere $.899/gallon when retail rates were around $1.60/gallon. I can't imagine what the group rate will be next year.

Gasoline prices here are running in the low $1.70s. Price at the pump this morning was $1.739. That means that it costs me about $45 for a fillup. I'm not complaining about it, just stating a fact. I made the decision to buy the vehicle I did a couple of years ago knowing full well that gas prices would probably go way up.”