$3.00 per gallon gasoline. Why is everyone so panicked?

because we all drive SUV's ahhhh!!!!

Reply to
Max Power
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You say a lot of really funny things. "Efficient" and "clean" my ass. It creates waste products that are deadly poison to everyone and can't be neutralized for thousands of years.

Thank whoever it is that has been successful at making the horror story public knowledge, because they have save the lives of your descendants.

You make these things up as you go? Where do you get the idea that we can't explore for oil in Alaska? We've been drilling like crazy since the 1940s! Your ignorance is astounding.

Go ahead and blame whoever you feel like. You are just hiding your head in the sand and refusing to deal with reality.

Reply to
Floyd L. Davidson

Funny thing *is* that you are lying. The quotes about "small fraction" are from the Department of Energy, and are correct.

Show me some of that data! You are lying. It doesn't exist.

You "read" it? In what, a comic book? Get real and stop lying.

We've been drilling for oil in Alaska since the 1940's. We don't have what you are claiming, and there is no data to suggest it exists.

You don't know the difference between the climate of Saudi Arabia and Prudhoe Bay???

Or you are lying about not knowing...

Reply to
Floyd L. Davidson

The refineries would not shut down for a day. Plus, what about people who drive a hundred miles or more a day? Even if they don't go to the gas station on Tuesday, they will go on Monday and Wednesday.

How much profit should oil companies make? Utilities often have a profit margin of 15-20%. What kind of profit margin should oil companies be making? Remember, like utilities, oil companies are for-profit companies. They invest billions of dollars in equipment like tankers, refineries and gas stations and in drilling wells.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

In article , snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net says... |i don't know where you get your gas mileage factors from, but up until 2 |years ago, my 65 falcon with it's V8 engine got 25 mpg. now , with the "new |and improved" garbage they are trying to pawn off on us as supposedly being |gas, it only gets 20 mpg.

I doubt if many people today drive 1965 car models. I'd be more interested to hear how the current fuel mix affects cars made within the past 6 years.

Reply to
Steven Stone

you want gas prices to go down??? there is a very easy and gaurenteed way to do it. if everyone would just grow a set of cookies and say "i will not buy gas on tuesday." then the refineries would have to shut down for a day, cause they would overfill their tanks. then the next week, do it again, but on another day. and keep on doing it. and then target a retailer. monday, no gas from hess. tuesday, no gas from sunoce, wensday, no gas from exxon. when they start loosing money, they will get the message, and lower prices, or have to drink it.

but this will never happen, because no one has the balls to do it.

Reply to
Tom

As to why people are panicked, it's because they are stupid. A lot of people bought SUV's and other gas hogging vehicles with the expectation that gasoline woult be cheap and plentiful for the foreseeable future. Politicians are scared because whomever is in power will get the blame.

Reply to
scott21230

One will know when the cost of a gallon of gasoline is too high, they will use less of it and the pump price will go down. As long as demand continues to go up as it has along with the cost per gallon, the commodities buyers will still by more crude futures at higher prices and the price will not go down. Economics 101 ;)

mike

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Apples and oranges. In Europe fuel and auto taxes are used to feed the socialist systems under which most live. It has little to do with conservation. The fuel taxes are two to three times what they are in the US and why they generally drive midget and small cars. If one wants laws that say the employer must pay you whether you go to work or not, or offer one so called 'free' healthcare, the money has to come from somewhere. Governments do not do anything that can create wealth, they must take money from those that can create wealth. Thirty hour work weeks do not help productivity rates. The US uses more energy but we feed half the world, produce more products and wealth than any other economy. period. There is not a country in the word that even approaches our annual increases in GDP. People from all around the world long to come to live in the USA and those that do not, long to do business in the USA ;)

mike

Reply to
Mike Hunter

We feed half the world? What do you? Drive a Ford tractor on the farm? While the United State exports billions of dollars of food every year (I think around $45 billion), it doesn't supply most of the food in the world. Or anywhere near half.

The US more energy to produce $1,000,000 of economic activity than Europe or Japan. It's not that the US produces more economic activity per person than most countries, but the US uses more energy to produce the same amount of economic acitvity.

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The US economy is smaller than the economy in Europe.
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Norway and a few other countries have a higher per capita GDP than the US.
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China, India and South Korea and many other countries are growing at a faster rate than the US.
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Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

I think if the traffic lights here where in sequence at all it would lower the price. When the oil industry makes a statement they always say its supply vs. demand, well if I didnt catch every red light then my demand wouldnt be as high.

Reply to
Max Power

Apples to oranges, small, faster, average. I don't own a farm but I own farm stocks. What I said was; "There is not a country in the world that even approaches our annual increases in GDP" and all that it encompasses. A large portion of the European economy is social spending, that why our increases in GDP in almost twice their smaller DP Sure we use more fuel but our farms are up to fifteen times as productive as any in the world. Many still use hand labor and animals to farm for goodness sake.

If one company sells 100 widgets on which they earn $100 and another sells

10 widgets on which they earn $100, and they both increased their sales by ten, which is selling the most widgets and which is growing faster? In which company would you want to own stock? ;)

mike

Reply to
Mike Hunter

I see you edited what I said, without indicating that fact. How intellectually dishonest of you.

I guess you can't explain why some countries in Europe are able to have similar economic activity (when messured in millions of dollars) for less energy. I guess you can't back you claim that the US feeds half the world. You talk about how big the economy is. Big deal. What counts is GDP per capita, not total economy. But that measure, Europe is bigger. And the third world is growing faster than the US. So what if we use machines on farms? They use them in Europe too. Sadly, there are too many areas of the world where they can't make enough food. Or feed everyone. Tonight, I will go to bed full. Hundreds of millions of kids will go to bed hungry. Including many in the US.

In the case of the widgets, I would rather own stock in the company selling

10 widgets and making $100. When it makes ten more widgets, it will make $200; the one that makes $100 widgets makes only $110. The smaller company is growing at a rate of 100% vs. 10% for the big one. That is why small companies often sell at a price that represents a higher relative price compared to the larger one.

Of course, small, growing countries, like those in Asia are growing faster than the US. Already, US is becoming less important in the financial world while Hong Kong and other cities are becoming more important.

Personally, I don't care which country is the best one. What I care about is which are growing more and how the countries are treating their citizens. Considering that hundreds of thousands of US citizens are in Iraq, thousands go hungry every night, the educational system doesn't do that great a job (the high school graduation rate in big cities is abotu 50%), many thousands are in jail, millions don't have insurance, and the income of poor and middle class people is not growing nearly as fast as the rich people, there is a lot to do in the US. Again, America is a great country. But there is a lot of work to be done.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

First off, I didn't call you a liar so could you give me the same respect? Second, Alaska is HUGE, nearly half the size of the 48 states. We have not explored all of Alaska mainly because of laws passed forbidding it. Also, if their is no oil in Alaska to speak of, then why are Oil companies constantly begging the gov't to let them explore ALL of Alaska, not just ANWR???

No one will ever answer that.

It's like saying the crime rate in New York City is very high therefore New York State is a dangerous place to live.

I would hope would could discuss the oil deal without the drama.

Reply to
Bob Brown

Why did france continue to build nuclear power plants?

Why do other countries in general desperately want fuel to build these plants? Please, don't speak of the "bomb", you know I'm speaking of countries that are known friends of the world.

Yuka Mountain was designated as a waste disposal area for nuclear products from those plants. It's gigantic facility and very very safe.

Reply to
Bob Brown

China has for several years now.

Reply to
Bob Brown

Wrong. The inventories at the refineries would go up less than 1% - and they fluctuate that much up or down day-to-day normally. Because everyone that drives will either get gas the day before the big "No Gas Day" or the day after.

They will see a small blip at the retail level - a high volume station that normally sells nearly 48,000 gallons a day (I know of one

- 5 to 6 tank-truck loads a day, 16 pumps and a line to get to them) might only sell 42,000 gallons that one day, but they'll see a bump the day before and the day after. Enough for the statisticians to see the difference, but nobody else.

Hess or Sunoco or Exxon might see a percent or two sales drop those days - but if the extra 'day before/day after' sales don't make up for it, it's easy for them to sell that gasoline on the 'spot market' to an independent station. They might lose a penny or two per gallon, but they won't lose any sleep over it.

Gasoline is fungible, it's a market traded commodity. Most of it comes from a common transport pipeline and regional tank farm system, and the outputs of all the regional refineries are commingled (essentially blended) in the pipeline and the storage tanks along the way before it gets to your local gas station. There's simply 87 Octane an 91 Octane, period.

The only difference between the brands? When they fill the delivery truck at the tank farm racks, they put in the detergent and additive package that the seller wants at that point - Chevron adds their Techron package, Hess or Exxon might have their own 'premium' package. If it's being sold to a non-branded station they add a generic package that meets the basic Federal, EPA and Automaker requirements.

It costs a lot extra to ship a specific refineries' fuel to several specific regional tank farms, and then they have to pay for a separate set of storage tanks (87 and 91 Octane) at each tank farm along the way. Only a few brands bother, and they charge a lot more.

Go find a local Community College and go get your BBA, then you'll see this can't work. I can see it without one, because it isn't that difficult - 'Supply and Demand' gets skewed in the seller's favor when the Suppliers are in collusion and the 'market constraints' they point to are artificially generated.

And the buyers of the products are mostly individuals and small companies that can't combine to force a change of direction in the marketplace. If we all belonged to Fuel Cooperatives that bought fuel in large quantities on the futures market and 'banked' it for use, that could generate enough clout in the marketplace to force change. But there are only small ones in rural states, and you have to have the money to invest in advance.

If you want to make the current system work, remove the excuses the oil companies use for the higher prices.

"Restricted Oil Supply" - North Slope drilling, place a pipeline through Canada to the Lower 48 to get crude here avoiding the use of tankers, and provide incentives to get more crude out of older oil fields in the USA through water or steam injection.

"Not enough refinery capacity" - well, that's easy enough - build a few new refineries, expand the ones that are operating (provide tax incentives for having excess capacity) and allow some of the shuttered ones to restart. The oil companies deliberately don't have excess capacity, or the prices would drop. They have created an artificially restricted supply.

Point: USA Petroleum (independent service station chain operator) bought a shuttered small refinery in Ojai CA, and they wanted to upgrade it to meet current pollution standards and reopen it to supply their own stations. But the NIMBY's living in the area (who probably work for other oil companies) kept it from reopening citing "safety concerns" and "noxious odors". (Bulls***.)

Point: Shell tried to shut down their Martinez CA refinery that provides 8% of California's Diesel Fuel supply, citing "Low Demand" for Diesel Fuel - More Bulls***. The Feds made them keep it running and sell it to Flying J Truck Stops as a fully operating refinery, and it's running just fine for Flying J. They have no problem selling all the fuel they can make, thank you very much.

"Can't afford to keep any added reserve inventory on hand" - so the Feds need to build up a large Strategic Reserve of refined products, so when there are temporary "problems" at the refineries (that were "unforeseen and totally unavoidable" - Yeah, Right, Suuuuure...) the Feds have several months worth of refined product on hand they can easily release for use.

That 'Strategic Reserve" would eliminate the excuses for the biennial market spikes as the refineries all "Change over to Summer or Winter fuel blends" and during their "annual maintenance" and the periodic "Fire/Explosion Emergency Shutdown" ersatz crises.

If the Feds place orders for Summer blend a month early in the Spring and sell off the Winter blend in the reserve (and vice versa in the Fall) they can buffer those annual periods.

And if they Feds can make a bit of a profit buying and selling the reserves, anything over the actual costs can go toward paying down the National Debt.

Having the Feds involved isn't my first choice - but the refined fuels market has entrenched massive collusion between the major players that is just this>--

Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

You are very very funny.

Reply to
Floyd L. Davidson

I have no respect whatever for someone who posts lies. The alternative is to suggest you are so dumb and ignorant that you don't know and can't learn any better...

Look son, I live in Alaska. I've seen most of it first hand. Do not pretend to lecture me with *false* statements about what it is or is not.

It is not "nearly half the size of the 48 states". It isn't even half that.

There you go again, lying for effect. That simply isn't true, and we do *not* have laws forbidding exploration in much of Alaska, much less most of it. Indeed, the only parts that have not been explored are those where nobody wants to explore!

Nobody has said there is "no oil in Alaska to speak of". Why do you make up such obvious false statements?

That statement is just as idiotic as you previous ones claiming there is some significant fraction of the world's supply of oil in Alaska (there isn't), or that it could supply the country for

100 years (absurd), or that the oil companies have data showing that (lets see you find *any* data showing *any* of those statements to be even close to true).

When is that?

You are indeed ignorant. You apparently haven't noticed that oil companies are not even asking to drill in ANWR! (The State of Alaska is where all the noise about ANWR comes from, not the oil companies.)

How can someone answer such an idiotic statement in a way that you will understand?

The oil companies *are* able to explore almost anywhere they choose. They simply do *not* choose to drill in very many places for some rather obvious reasons that are well known to everyone. They choose to drill many wells only in areas where it would be profitable to discover oil!

Which is to say, if all they can find is 500 million barrels, and it requires 100 miles of pipeline to produce it... *nobody* is interested! And *that* is why nobody is drilling in most parts of Alaska today.

You may have noticed that they are currently drilling a lot of exploratory wells just north (in the offshore areas) and just west of the current production facilities in the Prudhoe Bay industrial complex. They have long since poked hundreds of holes south of it and just east of it.

That is true. Did you have a point?

You need to stop making up your own set of facts. Nobody needs the drama created by your fabrications.

Reply to
Floyd L. Davidson

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