Gasoline Prices Options

[schwab]

95 chrysler, highway i get about 25-30, but in the city its not so good

[Dogmeat]

I am not necessarily talking about our ability to increase refining capacity. Yeah, we can say that we don't care about the environment and build whatever you want, the problem is getting the oil companies to build them. Refineries make very little money and business revolves around money.

Dogmeat, if you worked in a refinery then you know very well that the money that comes into one is eaten up by maintenance and reliability initiatives, very little goes to the company's bottom line.

Can you blame the oil companies for not wanting to try to build more refineries? The post I made above should illustrate this perfectly: Why do they want to fuck around for years and years and years and years with a bunch of red-tape bullshit that will cost them millions upon millions of dollars for no apparent reason at all?

It's the same type of thing that happened when Bush got elected and instructed the EPA, DEQ, BLM and whatever agencies to relax the complete horse shit requirements for getting drilling proposals.

Your statement "Oh well yeah we can say that we don't care about the environment and build whatever you want" is completley off the mark ... Explain to me how a completley self-contained refinery on a 20-acre parcel of land, or even a 100-acre parcel of land is any different than a new subdivision, shopping complex, or ANYTHING else. It isn't.... they take VERY strict care of the surrounding grounds, testing soils, air, water, wild life, you name it ....

exept prarie dogs. they kill all the prarie dogs they find cuz they royally fuck shit up ...

but, back to the original argument .... At what point will the refining capacity vs. gross profit be maximized? You're going to reach a point where the cost of doing business isn't going to be recouped by trying to sell the same quantity of product at higher prices. You'll put yourself out of business doing that ... the oil companies have been lucky in the sense they've had enough refining capacity to meet demand. If you haven't noticed, demand hasn't gone down even with more effecient vehicles now than ever ...

I'm willing to bet you start seeing people in washington wake the fuck up and realize that if refining capacity truly is the problem and they don't cut all the red-tape bullshit and make it viable for companies to build and/or expand new refineries, we're all going to be in VERY deep shit....

However, all of this COULD be negated by the fact that there is a very large push to find alternative energy sources such as E85 .... maybe E85 is going to help balance this all out, we'll just have to wait 10 years to see.

[Dogmeat]

Dogmeat: Quit referring to anyone that supports LOGICAL environmental efforts as a Goddamn hippie or Socialist. That shit is tiring and completely off base, for the most part. I.E.- Quit blanket insulting anyone not on the right-wing concerning big oil.
As far as this poll:
1.) The cause of the spike is an amalgamation of factors, no one complete cause. I do feel the biggest player in the spike is the oil companies seeking ever more profits, but let's face it: They're exploiting a perfect situation right now. The demand is high, as it will obviously remain and continue to grow, until consumers finally realize that they can't afford to take their kids to soccer practice in a fucking hummer and demand better valued hybrids (which are the first step towards less oil use in the transportation arena).

2.) So yeah, people will just need to wake up eventually and see that they are being exploited/wars raise oil prices/they are demanding too much oil/refineries can only make so much/etc. and start to fix things in a logical progression.

3.) $2-$2.50, if we're lucky.

"Logical environmental efforts" has been a virtual oxymoron in the last 30 years ... seriously, it has. Of all the "environmental efforts" i've witnessed, I'd say maybe %10 were logical and not political stunts, so forgive me for generalizing. I think that generalizations have been well-deserved in the vast majority of cases here

I guess the single biggest problem I have with these so-called "environmental efforts" is that they're being pushed by people whose livlihoods, state economies, whatever don't revolve around having jobs in the oilfield. I find it assinine when hollywood zealots like barbara streisand use their wealth so misguidedly to fight political battles in parts of the country they MIGHT visit once a year has an ENORMOUS effect on the thousands of people that might live and work in that area, and actually *enjoy* the "environment" there. I have yet to meet a single person in the oilfield that wanted to see their old stomping grounds fucked up by drilling operations. Not one. I'd be willing to be that %90 of the people who work out there and more concerned about "the environment" than ANYONE from a thousand miles away ...

I dunno. If you think about how many trillions of gasoline, gallons of oil, etc have been recovered and produced vs. how many have ever been accidentally spilled, I'd say the track record is amazing. Why do you want to spill what makes you money? And what's even funnier is, all of the so-called negative environmental impact that is generated by drilling operations that supposedly fucks up the land, etc .... I dunno, I spent the first 24 years of my life in the most outdoorsey state in the country and I have yet to see a drilling operatioon fuck up a fishing hole or hunting round I used to roam in ...

go figure....

sorry man, the phrase "logical environmental effort" sounds really good but the people who claim that's what they're pushing are basically selling political snake oil .... there's not a lot that's "logical" about it from my standpoint.

[impala454]

yeah no shit... wait 10 years for E85 bc there ARENT ANY DAMN STATIONS

[Dogmeat]

There hasn't been a new refinery built in the U.S. since 1976. You obviously did not read my post.

For one, I don't think refining capacity is the biggest problem. Secondly, refining does not make money. For the big companies (Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, etc.) the money is the exploration and production (not confused with refining). The profit margins may look great for refineries but those are before cuts are taken for maintenance and outage predictions (they level the curve). The commodity is oil, not gasoline, so the record profits are coming from that...

Also, if you think that refineries make their money off of gasoline then you are dead wrong. The bit of money that they are able to bring in comes from the high-end, specialty stuff (Jet-A, plastics, chemicals, etc.), which is another reducer in the gasoline capacity (but again, not the main problem).

I've been to 22 of some of the biggest refineries in the world and all of them have one thing in common, their budgets are shrinking and their ability to maintain their equipment is shrinking. The more they can do to preemptively fix problems, the more likely they are to stay open.

The increase we are seeing right now in prices, in my opinion, are artificial and based on poor forecasting.

You do not make any fucking sense at all by stating that "refining doesn't make any money whatsoever, it's exploration and production that do" .... what in the _FUCK_ are you talking about?

How in the ***FUCKING WORLD*** do you make money by "exploration"? Seriously dude once you've thought about this one, come back and tell me, because the way you prosed that statement makes me wonder what you're smoking.

"Hi, we're Exxon, we just spent 8 billion dollars on an explorative project in the gulf that didn't yield one flowing well! We made MILLIONS off that!"

You can't look at it in the terms you're trying to look at it.

You have to look at everything in the big picture. If you never explore to find new petroleum, you never have any production, ie, produced petroleum, and then in turn you _NEVER_ have a product to sell. The only customers you're gonna have selling unrefined crude are maybe that of ship companies who can use barley refined crude as fuel oil.

So again, explain to me how it is you only make money off spending billions of dollars to find new petroleum reserves and then flowing it out of the ground?

What good is unrefined crude or natural gas sitting in storage tanks? Nothing.

If you don't refine crude into gasoline, how the hell are you gonna make any money off the billions you spent exploring for it and producing it? Doesn't make a lick of sense to me

You made a hell of a lot of money producing that oil and not refining it! YAY! Think about how many products you can get from cracking a given barrel of oil ... Obviously gasoline is going to be your single largest profit because of the sheer volume of it you are gonna produce. If refineries made so much money off slanging the other shit, then why are we not running cars with 110 octane jet fuel? If they make more money off that why not sell more of it?
.

[JRockTTU]

I never thought I would type this, but Dogmeat is the winner of this thread. He comes across as the only completely educated person on this subject (other than Hartmann, who lost a few points because dogmeat's posts had more fire to them).

The only way we will get lower gas prices is if demand goes down. Simple as that. If people want less dependence on oil then they should be loving these high prices. The price will have to keep going up until it stifles our demand (which it hasn't yet) and then the oil companies will lower prices and car companies will start to invest in finding cheaper solutions to fuel.

[Psykopath]

"Logical environmental efforts" has been a virtual oxymoron in the last 30 years ... seriously, it has. Of all the "environmental efforts" i've witnessed, I'd say maybe %10 were logical and not political stunts, so forgive me for generalizing. I think that generalizations have been well-deserved in the vast majority of cases here

I guess the single biggest problem I have with these so-called "environmental efforts" is that they're being pushed by people whose livlihoods, state economies, whatever don't revolve around having jobs in the oilfield. I find it assinine when hollywood zealots like barbara streisand use their wealth so misguidedly to fight political battles in parts of the country they MIGHT visit once a year has an ENORMOUS effect on the thousands of people that might live and work in that area, and actually *enjoy* the "environment" there. I have yet to meet a single person in the oilfield that wanted to see their old stomping grounds fucked up by drilling operations. Not one. I'd be willing to be that %90 of the people who work out there and more concerned about "the environment" than ANYONE from a thousand miles away ...

I dunno. If you think about how many trillions of gasoline, gallons of oil, etc have been recovered and produced vs. how many have ever been accidentally spilled, I'd say the track record is amazing. Why do you want to spill what makes you money? And what's even funnier is, all of the so-called negative environmental impact that is generated by drilling operations that supposedly fucks up the land, etc .... I dunno, I spent the first 24 years of my life in the most outdoorsey state in the country and I have yet to see a drilling operatioon fuck up a fishing hole or hunting round I used to roam in ...

go figure....

sorry man, the phrase "logical environmental effort" sounds really good but the people who claim that's what they're pushing are basically selling political snake oil .... there's not a lot that's "logical" about it from my standpoint.

Christ I've got a lot of posts to respond too...but hey, YAY for some good debate in NPR.

Aaron: Oh man, please do NOT confuse me with those dipshit celebs that think earning $20 mill for a movie/song/sucking cock entitles them to lead some environmental crusade. FUCK THEM

I understand that a great deal of the environmental movement is dominated by political motives ("Snake oil" schemes, as you said). But everything seems to be like that these days, even the oil and subsequent peripheral industries (automotive and such).
Funny thing is, I'm actually more inclined to support drilling in Alaska now, just so long as they don't go into the Tundra like Bush through Iraq!...i.e.- tear it up for nothing. (heh, had to zing Bush once in this post...isn't that supposed to be a "liberal" theme?!)

And yes, logic fails most of the drug fiend hippies that run these silly campaigns. But there are some good people...minus the lawyers...who are out to simple play the benevolent watchdog. No interference unless it's necessary/company does something drastic to the environment or something like that. These "groups" or more often than not loose associations of individuals that obviously don't get as much airplay as the whackjobs from PETA/Earth Now and the like.

But yeah...I'm rambling a bit now...umm, anything more you want me to address Aaron then just PM me or ask in this thread.

Rock on with your posts, BTW. I'll go ahead and give you another e-BJ, as many other already have, over the quality of your responses thus far. =P

So back in the late 90s when gas was like $0.85/gallon, oil companies weren't seeking profits?

Of course they were. They weren't pulling record profits like today, obviously.

That's just the point though... people can afford it just fine. People whine about gas prices because it takes away from their play money. OMG I had to spend an extra $50 on gas this month, now I can't go out for steak one night ! crying.gif it's every american's right to drive whatever they want, but like dogmeat said, they can't complain if they chose a gas guzzler.

Well yeah, some can afford such luxuries. But the majority of people I see driving the big gas guzzlers are the middle-class people that have both adults working full time jobs and barely scraping by as it is without driving the tank to their kid's recital.
And no, I'm not advocating some ban on SUVs, so I hope you were not assuming that I support such a thing.
And yet again, I know it's a person's choice as to what vehicle they purchase/drive. I really should have added that it was more of an attack on consumer mentality in my original post.

Take a look at the graph. I don't see much evidence to support this. There was a major world war in the 1940s, and another major war in the late 1960s, the entire time, gasoline was declining in price. There was a war between Iran & Iraq between 1980-1988, and the gulf war in 1991, those all have steady declines in gas prices.

WWII- Well, I think that it's safe to assume cars were fairly less common in those days, plus there was rationing and all that, so domestic demand was probably a bit lower. I'd actually like to do a bit more historical economic research on that before I form any full on conclusion for that era though.

Vietnam era- Looks like it stayed reasonably steady, with a slight dip in the inflation adjusted price following the withdrawal of US forces from 'Nam.

The Iran-Iraq war- Well, it spiked in both figures during the first part of that, but then it slid back to a bit below pre-conflict numbers at its conclusion, no surprise there.

Gulf War- Looks like it held steady for '91.

Also, of course gas prices have declined since 1918 on that chart. Let's see: cars were rare, low production efficiency, things like that...it'll obviously lead to a higher price for a product that had an increasing demand, but took much more effort to produce than today. Just like when TVs, VCRS, and other such things first hit the market. Fuckers were expensive.

I'd be interested to know what everyone's vehicle is and what mileage they really get. don't be quoting the manufacturer either, if you don't keep track just say so.

1993 Jeep Cherokee
Gets about 18 or so in town, and pretty good on the highway...I'd say close to 25 or so.

I want to get a Subaru Outback 2.5i when I get more cash for a new vehicle. 23/28+ city/highway miles for such a versatile vehicle.

[Testm0nkey]

start culling people who drive vehicles with less than 23mpg. large LARGE tax breaks (for a limited time) for the purchase of fully hybrid vehicles.
pressure car manufactors to increase output of hypbrid vehicles. stop putting all the money into figuring what will kill the most people and put some more money into alternative fuels and making them better
put more emphasis on city planning/zoning revamping city centers. try to stop suburban sprawl this ties into better public transportation. get more companies to pay at least partly for its workers bus passes. lots already do this
your government doesnt want to lower gas prices

[Spectatrix]

I think gas prices are fairly high, but adjusted for inflation I think we're right where we should be (or perhaps on a slight spike). I think we just happened to have a 5-10 year period of insanely low prices, which makes today's prices look outrageous. I recall gas as low as $0.75 when I was a sr in high school, which, adjusted for inflation, was the lowest price in the history of gasoline in the US. we just happened to grow up during those times, and now get pissed that it's back to a more "normal" price.

Folks disagree on whether or not we've surpassed the 1981 gasoline price spike in current dollars, but we're definitely close:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/22/news/econo...sion=2007052213 http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id...mp;formato=HTML

I'm sure we'll unarguably beat that record later this spring or summer.

[James]

*looks up*

FUCK! Three out of the four car info posters are dead :'(

[Psykopath]

*looks up*

FUCK! Three out of the four car info posters are dead :'(

Wait, what?

[James]

start culling people who drive vehicles with less than 23mpg.

I counted three people - myself, impala, and moebary. Maybe I miscounted?

[GOB]

i'm sure glad i chose this weekend to move down to san antonio. can't wait to fill up on saturday when i get down there.

[JRockTTU]

I drive a 2001 Rav4, gets a lot better gas mileage than my truck did. I don't track it, but I get over 20 mpg and fill up (15 gal tank) no more frequently than every 2 weeks. I usually top it off on payday just to stay in a rhythm.

EDIT: someone should start a separate thread for the cars so that we don't spam this one. I'm too lazy....

[Testm0nkey]

my car gets ~15mpg but i am willing to die for what i believe in