Diesel fuel prices

The first voting democracy were the Greeks. Found out, oddly, they did not vote for incumbents. Rather, they were entitled to vote out the worst person of the riff-raff. The unlucky person's belonging were frozen, and the person was exiled for ten years from the locale. Sounds appropriate for some current leaders today.

Reply to
Jonny
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Reply to
none2u

That came later. Initially, no. Later, yes. You're correct for the later part.

Reply to
Jonny

What a gash!

Reply to
Numan

Dude, why do you even waste your time mocking people? It doesn't serve a purpose besides making you look like an asshole.

Reply to
Numan

The short answer is: The end user price of diesel fuel in the USA is relatively cheap when compared to world market prices. But in saying this, the price of Diesel fuel as with ANY commodity is a function of the sum of its cost factors. Among these factors are: Supply, Refining capability, Transportation costs, Federal regulation, Federal / State / Local Taxes. In the EU, there are few competitive markets for petroleum products. Most countries have nationalized their petroleum industry and can charge what they want or subsidize the cost. Recently, North Slope Oil has been curtailed due to a decade long practice by British Petroleum to zero or near zero maintenance on the infrastructure. Running compressor turbines until it fails. Flow control valves are not preventatively replaced and under this philosophy fail and tend to fail catastrophically. So now, Prudhoe Bay supplied crude is flowing at a trickle of what it was prior to the shutdown and presently, this gives rise to a supply deficit issue. Weather in the Gulf of Mexico with Hurricane Katrina brought about supply, transportation, and refining capability issues, so prices get squeezed upward there. As it relates to supply, you now have the nations of India and China, going out and purchasing refined fuel as well as crude oil to fire the engines of their respective economies. So, its not just the USA looking for raw crude and refined product, but those countries as well. New Federal / EPA regulations mandating the blending of diesel fuel to more closely match the formulation of what is produced in the EU are now impacting costs. USA Diesel #2, has a higher sulfur content and is unfriendly to the newer generations of Diesels soon to come to market in the next 2 to 4 years. Transportations costs are relatively minor due to our US Interstate Highway system which allows for a cheaper cost of moving goods and services from point A to point B than it is for people in the EU. Of course, the exception being for remote places in rural areas especially remote villages in Alaska. As it relates to taxes, it would not surprise me to hear that out of each gallon of diesel fuel or gasoline, that the combined take of Federal / State / Local taxes almost, if not exceeds, at least 1 dollar per gallon. I can only imagine what the taxes are in the countries of the EU or Canada. If you are from the UK / EU or Canada, please let us know how much of what you pay for the price per gallon is eaten up by taxes. This would be fascinating to know. I don¹t know if Bio-diesel is going to solve anything either in the short or the long term view. Its probably going to be the proverbial "drop in the bucket".

I have dealt with the spike rises in fuel costs to a curtailment of activity. I ask myself twice, Is this run to the market necessary or of convenience. If convenience, I make a note of what I need in order to combine the times when I do run out, that I make a 1 time loop and catch every thing that I need or that I leave early for work and plan a route that takes where I need to shop that is on the way to work. Since March, I have combined going to work on the mass transit bus system that allows me to take a bicycle along and ride the bike home when buses are not running. By doing this, I saved the consumption of 15 gals of gas per week @ near 2.90 US$ per gallon cost. I am currently looking at apartments near where I work so that I only have a 10 or 15 minute walk one way.

Just my 2 cents / 2 pence / 2 dinars worth Terrence

Reply to
Terrence

My take (at least why Diesel is more than gas in my area is that Truckers have to buy diesel but families don't HAVE to go on vacation. So increase the cost of diesel (which is cheaper to make) so you can keep the gas prices "low". This way you make the Truckers pick up the difference to keep the cars on the road.

But what do I know....

Dave

Reply to
ironhorse

It's a supply/refining issue. In Europe a much larger proportion of cars are diesel (as if you didn't already know this). What puts the upward pressure on Diesel prices vs Gasoline is the refiners. In recent (last 10 to 15) years the major refiners have invested in distilling gasoline to maximum efficiency. This investment has a relatively slow return about 20 years. Meanwhile demand for diesel has increased thanks to the Europeans moving into diesel cars. The result is demand for diesel has increased at a greater rate the refiners are willing to increase production of diesel (relative to gasoline). Long term projections (US petrolium institute) are that the price disparity will likely be with us for at least another 10 or so years. An added recent cost in the US is the federal regulation mandating a lower sulfer content in diesel fuel effective this past January (2006). This regulation has added several cents to the retail price of a gallon, on the other hand it may prove to significantly improve the health of our children by reducing the amount of asthma promoting particles in the air. I personally hate the higher price, but if a few kids can play on the monkey bars outside and few extra days a year, I can afford the money.

Just as a side note if you are interested in tracking the wholesale price of diesel, follow home heating oil; Reuters commodity pages(NYMEX). It tracks almost in lock step with diesel fuel-rarely more the a penny or so price spread between diesel and heating oil. You should as we get closer to the fall in the US see the price begin to decline a bit just before the home heating season begins.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Reply to
Rico

...and as we get closer to November 7th.

Reply to
Papa

That will be over all oil prices declining, diesel will see a slight drop in price relative to gasoline in the early fall as refiners shift more to home heating oil production. Of course the usual risks to oil prices are still out there. Nigeria is no where close to settling their internal political situation, so the 'marsh' people will continue to 'damage' oil production and the regime will continue to overreact and not alter the way the oil money is distributed. Iran will not stop building nukes; what happened to Saddam in Iraq has taught them that lesson, he who actually has nukes doesn't get invaded. Venezuela's socialist regime will continue to find it popular with the people to tweak the gringoes in North America and BP will continue to refuse to perform routine maintainance on its basic infrastructure. These issues may find themselves outside the control of US politics. The current decline in crude prices reflects a slowing of the US and other major economys. So while the current regime in Washington welcomes a break in 'gas' prices, it also indicates that job and wage growth may be looking less then good by November. So they may not be able to win for losing .

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Reply to
Rico

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