Gas Prices?

Ok so the oil industry took a hit right? Now they charge more for fuel. Isn't this "Price Gouging"?

 

to them it's a commodity based market, supply and demand.
I think the better questions to ask are more in line with our current supply and demand situation.
Most of our supply comes from the gulf coast, we haven't built a new refinery in decades, and California doesn't want oil tankers to offload in their ports.
Add to that an increasing demand and we're boud to see shortages when two major hurricanes hit the gulf. I think that we need to start allowing the oil industry to leave the gulf coast with it's refineries and supply. I know that I wouldn't want a refinery in my backyard, but that is a nice big target on the coast for disasters, natural and man made.

 

Demand does not equal need. Demand equals the willingness to pay and the ability to pay for it. Problem is, we don't have a choice so we are FORCED to pay regardless of wether or not we are able and willing to pay.

 

I filled up Thursday night, figuring things would get crazy again. They are.

One of the TV stations were going around last night to stations that were jacking their prices, and humiliating them into taking them back down. Distributor prices had NOT gone up any at all. It's mainly the local station owners that are doing the gouging, not the oil companies themselves.

Today the news is reporting a run at all the gas stations with everybody trying to fill up before the worst of the insanity starts.

Supply & demand is a simple concept. If supply is greater than demand (whether it's something we need, or just want), suppliers as a group will have trouble selling all their goods, and will have to compete with each other to capture buyers. Price competition is common. If demand is greater then supply, suppliers can sell everything they have, pretty much regardless of price, so they are much more free to jack up prices. If they're worried about long-term customer loyalty, they'll do this modestly. If they don't care, they can go nuts with it. This happens to some extent with manufacturers, but is more volatile at the retail sales level... like gas stations.

 

My point exactly. How is them charging more for fuel because of a "Natural Disaster", than it would be for say......some convenience store charging more for items they know won't be replentished for a while? They are taking advantage of the people to fix thier damage. It's wrong no matter how you slice it up.

 

Wrong!

Chevron hiked the gas in Northern California and it still is $315 a gallon with $325 diesel. I know a local seller who is paying $305 plus delivering his own fuel. Not a huge margin considering the cost of being in business (insurance, and people) in our area.

Oh, and our gas did not come from Southern refineries..... there was plenty of gas in our storage tanks, still Chevron hiked the prices.

 

well, the share holders can't lose money can they..

here's what 3+ dollars a gallon buys you..

 

IIRC, that's the "home" of one of the oil magnates in Bahrain, or UAR, or one of the other small oil producing countries. It's the result of owning the wells, not selling the gasoline. It's not a brand new building reflecting the current high price of crude oil, it's long term result of owning the oil wells.

 

Semantics.. it eventually trickles down that direction. Regardless of time, he's only getting more rich.

 

California's gas prices are related to the national issues, but are not identical to other places. Not all gas is created equal. California mandates a special gas formulation that's supposed to be cleaner burning than what most of the country uses, and California gas prices have always been quite a bit higher than, for example, here near Memphis where we can burn the cheaper (and better performing!) stuff. There are a lot of special formulations around the country, and you can't bring in any "lesser" gas from other areas. To a large extent, you can blame CARB for your higher prices. Right after Katrina, Pres. Bush requested that everybody drop their special formulations temporarily to help both with prices and with flexibility in sharing gas around the country, and he was ignored.

 

Dynamics like this is why we need to push HEAVILY for alternative power sources.

 

He is indeed. I just don't want anybody to confuse the obscene riches over there with the oil companies over here. Chevron, Exxon, at al are all paying HIM.

 

Point taken. Let me find the house of one of them instead

 

LOL. Go for it. It won't be anything like THAT monster.

 

Petrol here in Queensland is around AUD$1.30 per litre (subsidised approx. AUD$0.10 per litre), by the Queensland Government). At around 4.454 litres per Imperial gallon that works out to AUD $5.80 per Imperial gallon. Converted to USD at around $0.75 exchange rate works out to USD$4.34, per Imperial Gallon. I know that the US gallon is slightly smaller than an Imperial gallon, so don't know that conversion without checking on Google. Just an idea on what we, in Queensland (Regional city on the East Coast), are paying. Bazza

PS: Talkfest organised about petrol prices, Government tax, and service station gouging, but it gets nowwhere, as usual. Oil companies just refuse to turn up. Bazza

 

there is now as much as 50c difference in prices between garages here. the only explination is that some are charging more than they should.

 

Unfortunately, the gas stations here all charge a very similar price. Collusion?, or greed, or lack of competition, I know not. Bazza

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It was up to 1.95.9 per liter here. down to 1.09.9 when i came to work, bet its up to 135 before i leave in the morning..

 

Yes, and we have not built a refinery (or nuclear power plant) in over 30 years to lessen the reliance on the foreign oil. We import a lot of refined unleaded gasoline in America- more so than crude. Outsourcing said it was cheaper with all the laws that restrict business here.

FW190 hit it correctly, supply and demand is the cause. I still do not blame the local guy trying to stay in business. Enron was not the first corrupt company in Houston!

 

Hey, thats competing with UK petrol prices!

 

personally I'dlove to see all of the land wasted in "land bank" around where I live turned into soybean fields or algae ponds for the production of bio-diesel. I'm not normally on the tree-hugger kick, but plant based diesel fuel is probably the easiest solution. It would use our existing liquid fuel infrastructure and the transition could be made slowly as more diesels are sold and production comes online.
If you think about it, plant based fuels are basically solar energy, you're simply using the plant to do the conversion rather than a solar panel.

 

the only problem with large scale viable alternatives to current fossil fuels is that the oil industry owns most of the ideas. Do we pay 5$ a gallon for gas next year or $25 for the equivalent in hydrogen or another source that will cost billions to implement?

 

I don't see hydrogen as the alternative fuel of the future. For one, the a hydrogen gas pump is almost a million dollar iten, and how many pumps do we need? That doesn't even get into the fact that hydrogen just doesn't have that much energy in it. THe only alternative that has a chance of being in widespread use in the next decade or so seems to be a liquid bio mass fuel. Everything else would cost far to much in infrastructure needs.
Bio-Diesel isn't owned by anyone, it has a strong movement developing homebrew solutions, and our current fuel delivery system can deliver it.

 

If you've been to a gas station lately, you have no doubt been shocked by the prices: $1.67, $1.78, even $1.92. And that's just for Hostess Twinkies. Gas prices are even worse.


Americans are ticked off about this, and with good reason: Our rights are being violated! The First Amendment clearly states: 'In addition to freedom of speech, Americans shall always have low gasoline prices, so they can drive around in `sport utility' vehicles the size of minor planets.''


And don't let any so-called ''economists'' try to tell you that foreigners pay more for gas than we do. Foreigners use metric gasoline, which is sold in foreign units called ''kilometers,'' plus they are paying for it with foreign currencies such as the ''franc,'' the ''lira'' and the ''doubloon.'' So in fact there is no mathematical way to tell WHAT they are paying.


But here in the U.S., we are definitely getting messed over, and the question is: What are we going to do about it? Step one, of course, is to file a class-action lawsuit against the cigarette companies. They have nothing to do with gasoline, but juries really hate them, so we'd probably win several hundred billion dollars.


But that is a short-term answer. To truly solve this problem, we must understand how the oil business works. Like most Americans, you probably think that gasoline comes from the pump at the gas station. Ha ha! What an idiot. In fact, the gasoline comes from tanks located UNDER the gas station. These tanks are connected to underground pipelines, which carry large oil tankers filled with oil from the Middle East.


But how did the oil get in the Middle East in the first place? To answer that question, we must go back millions of years, to an era that geologists call the Voracious Period, when giant dinosaurs roamed the Earth, eating everything that stood in their path, except for broccoli, which they hated.


And then, one fateful day (Oct. 8), a runaway asteroid, believed by scientists to be nearly twice the diameter of the late Orson Welles, slammed into the Earth and killed the dinosaurs, who by sheer bad luck all happened to be standing right where it landed. The massive impact turned the dinosaurs, via a process called photosynthesis, into oil; this oil was then gradually covered with a layer of sand,
which in turn was gradually covered by a layer of people who hate each other, and thus the Middle East was formed.


For many years, the Middle East was content to supply the United States with as much oil as we wanted at fair constitutional prices. But then the major oil-producing nations -- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Texas -- got all snotty and formed an organization called OPEC, which stands for ''North Atlantic Treaty Organization.'' In the 1970s, OPEC decided to raise prices, and soon the United States was caught up in a serious crisis: The Disco Era. It was horrible. You couldn't go to a bar or wedding reception without being ordered onto the dance floor to learn "The Hustle.''


At the same time, we also had an oil crisis, which was caused by the fact that every motorist in the United States was determined to keep his or her automobile gas tank completely filled at all times. As soon as your gas gauge dropped from ''Full'' to ''Fifteen-sixteenths,'' you'd rush to a gas station and get in a huge line with hundreds of other motorists who also had nearly full tanks. Also a lot of people, including me, saved on heating oil by buying kerosene space heaters, which enabled us to transform a cold, dank room into a cold, dank room filled with kerosene fumes. Buying gas and dancing ''The Hustle'' with people who smelled like kerosene: That was the '70s.


So anyway, the oil crisis finally ended, and over time we got rid of our Volkswagen Rabbits and replaced them with Chevrolet Suburbans boasting the same fuel economy as the Pentagon. Now, once again, we find ourselves facing rising gas prices, and the question is: This time, are we going to learn from the past? Are we finally going to get serious about energy conservation?


Of course not! We have the brains of mealworms! So we need to get more oil somehow. As far as I can figure, there's only one practical way to do this.


That's right: We need to clone more dinosaurs. We have the technology, as was shown in two blockbuster scientific movies, ''Jurassic Park'' and ''Jurassic Park Returns with Exactly the Same Plot.'' Once we have the dinosaurs, all we need is an asteroid. Or, if he is available, Michael Moore.


If this plan makes sense to you, double your medication dosage, then write to your congressperson.


Do it now! That way you'll be busy when I siphon your tank.

 

@ G.T

That is absolutely hilarious, and in a perverted way make sense.

 

Goldy, are those prices converted to USD? I hope they are not GB pounds, per liter/liter. Even at USD, they are dearer than in OZ. Bazza

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those prices i posted where in canadian. which is currently trading for 1cnd = ~$.80 usd. Gas is around 1.19.5 now. Per liter.
I've spend $0 on gas in the past 19 years. Hoping cars get smarter before i have to buy one.

 

GT - awsome! nuff said

 

Oil companies suck in way that I can't even post here...

What ever happened to that thread with the solar scooter ?

 

The local news station here runs a program about gas prices every week ...and what do thay call it ??
Gas Pains ......thought id share my local news stations poor program naming skills ...

 

NO NO NO NO....you've got it all wrong...all we need to do is raise minimum wage so that a high school kid can get a job at mcdonalds starting at $15.00/hour!!!! Before you know it we will pay $14.95 for a double cheeseburger and a coke!!!!

Come on people...all we have to do is inflate EVERYTHING else around us so it all evens out!! Nevermind that you will have to put a twenty dollar bill into a soda machine in order to cover the cost of a bottle of soda!!!!

Roger

 

One of the biggest causes(other than the storms obviously) is having such a large concentration of wells and refineries in such a relatively small area. FINALLY...drilling on the north shore has been approved. I know, I know...the environmentalists have held this up with thier lobbying for years. Thier concern for the "fragile" environment is noteworthy but perhaps(LMAO)a little over the top. Granted...there was the Exxon Valdez disaster, but that wasn`t a failure of the drilling ops or the pipeline, that was a drunken sailor. The drilling and the pipeline that was built in Alaska almost 30 years ago has a remarkably good record considering the scope of the project. It`s ABOUT DAMNED TIME that north shore drilling has been approved. It`ll be years before there is any benefit from it but point your finger at the greenies for that. I love the outdoors as much as anyone, and the critters thereof...but until alternate feul systems are perfected petroleum is the deal. It`d make it easier not to kiss OPEC`S a** too if we had more of our own.

 

Why even waste time talking and arguing about it? All people do these days is talk about and complain about a problem and don't do anything to change things. The reason for the high gas and oil prices are because of the corrupt American government. It all stems from that horribly run democracy.

 

BAM !!!! The truth comes out......Nailed it Angus IMO....I just ride my bike every ware i go ......

 

Our "horribly run democracy" is better than our neighbors to the north...as my friends near the Niagra Falls border calls it...we don`t have a GST (go shop Topps) tax. And leave us not forget the secessionists in Quebec...and the thousands of people waiting in line in Ottawa or going to the states for thier MRI`s or cat-scans or surgeries. I`m not trying to start a pi**ing match but as bad as you seem to think it is here it`s worse north of the border. Oh yeah...what has our "horribly run democracy" have to do with Canadians paying $1.90/litre for gas?

 

hey guys. my last reply got deleted, so i'm sorry if i inadvertently offended someone with my john candy flick reference. feel free to pm me, as i'm unsure of what caused it and would like to avoid it in the future.

 

Worse here in Canada? Canada is not perfect but it's better than America by far.

GST has given us a balanced buget compared to America's trillion dollar debt. GST stands for Government Sales Tax.

Canadian's going to America for their medical facilities? What a joke. Canada's health care system is superior to America's. Why would a Canadain go to America when it's free here to have an MRI, CT Scan, or for surgery? A large number of American's go to Mexico every year to have medical procedures done beacuse it doesn't cost an insanely high price.

We don't pay $1.90 for a litre of gas. Never have. It went as high as $1.30 a litre because the US used hurricane Katrina, and now Rita, as an excuse to raise gas and oil prices. In Canada gas cost about 93 cents before the hurricanes. Now it's at about $1.10. That's what America has to do with Canadian's paying for high-priced gas.

In Venezuala the people there pay about 4 cents per galon for gas. When Venezualan oil reaches America it suddenly jumps in price to 80 times it's value just because it's in America? Sounds like greed and corruption to me.

George Bush is run by his father and the Texas Oil Billionares. And they are all in bed with the Saudi Oil Billionares. They are always pushing for more oil consumption and profit.

 

Say what you will about our leaders. Thanks to us you`re entitled to that as we are. I was in Hamilton and saw the 1.90 a litre price of gas. Balanced budget? heh heh heh. Your medical system is strained to the breaking point because of budget problems and your best and brightest physicians are in the states or abroad because they can earn a living here...and unlike Canada have ready access to the latest diagnostic and surgical equipment. You gst hasn`t done what your government`s liberal policies intended it too. It`s been proven time and again, world-wide, that socialized medicine is an abysmal failure for that very reason. You throw money at a problem and it doesn`t necessarily go away. There`s an old saying..."Give a man a fish and he`ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish he`ll eat every day." No system is perfect...but unlike my dear friend Diane`s Ma....at least here in the states you won`t die from an undiagnosed disease because there was a 6 month wait for an MRI.

 

no...you'll die because 43% (or some such dreadfull figure) doesnt have insurance, and half of those that do have medicaid and that doesnt cover much!

i have worked with both the US and UK medical systems, and despite all the problems with socialized medicine, i think that its better than the iniquities of private. just my two cents

 

*tap-tap-tap* Hello? Anyone there? Well...hmmmm....interesting points/counter points being made here. Lets make sure it stays civil, ie: no personal attacks ok?

[EDIT] just noticed laurieb's post got in before mine...the interesting points/discussion I was referring too....well guys...you know who you are) [/EDIT]

 

I never make personal attacks, so you don't have to worry about me, AbbySue.

I knew that if I criticized the American Government the thread would turn into a my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad arguement. I didn't want that to happen but it did. I think the American Government is corrupt and run in a very bad way and in turn that is causing massive gas price hikes.

It is price gouging like Suseman said because the government lets the oil companies get away with it and doesn't try to stop them. Why would the government? The oil industry has a direct control on the American government. It's greed and corruption.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=asxAzV.tqzR0&refer=canada


Sometimes facts can shoot a painful hole in the foot of a theory

Nice to see you again Angus, been wondering how'd you been getting along

 

If you knew then why??http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/confused.gif LOL "I knew it would....didn't want it to....but it did..."

This site IS primarily residents of the USA so of course that would reflect many of the responses received....also knowing how passionate people are in their political beliefs..my brother Sasquatch77 included, I was just putting the reminder out there. Simple as that...or click HERE for a more detailed reminderhttp://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

I`ve never let my posts get personal...but I am not now , nor have I ever been afraid to post what`s on my mind. I guess my biggest problem is that I get sick of "Let`s dump on the USA..." and the only thing I`ve ever seen is us rushing to help(I`ll admit sometimes misguided)whoever needed our help...and we`re always the bad guy. like I said in an earlier post...no system is perfect. BUTBUTBUT it seems the popular thing to bash the USA no matter how well-intentioned our acts as a people,yes, a people might be. There`s a lot of good in in the world that`s there because WE sacrificed to help...whether it`s been in our tax-dollars...or our war-dead(see WWI and WWII)and the "Let`s dump on the US and thier leaders" mentality that I`d like to pull in ALL of our foreign aid...and bring back the hundreds of thousands of men and women that gave thier lives trying to defeat tyrrany on our shores and others. I`m biased, I`ll admit. I VOLUNTEERED to do military time and I have such a deep-rooted sense of patriotism I have little patience for USA bashing. I just get tired of people...never mind...this has turned from a post to a rant and that wasn`t my intention. I apologise for any offense,real or imagined. I will digress from venting any of my patriotic nonsense. I think Rush Limbaugh is full of crap just like a lot of the others(liberals)do...but noone can be wrong all the time...nor can they be right all the time. Perhaps the world would be a better place if the left would realize that point too.

 

CA, you managed to turn a civil discussion about petroleum pricing and gouging into an attack on American government.

The U.S. importing oil from Canada blows your #1 theory; look to your own oil distribution industry for your current high prices.

Here's your pristine Canadian government. Ya' know what they say about glass houses.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/

 

I almost played the "glass houses" card myself but then I`m not hypnotized by the media so I didn`t think I needed to. Thank you for playing it for me.