[YouthTronix]

I dont know if any of you have seen this. But please pass it on to any forums/people you know. I am not gonna get any gas on this day, I hope none of you will either.


IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.
AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

THEREFORE MAY 19TH HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT UP THEIR BEHIND" DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.

WAITING ON THIS ADMINISTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE MAY 19TH A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH".

[BillK]

yt,
The real thing to do is to not drive for a day and save that much gas. Not buying it on one particular day will not make a bit of difference if you just go and get it the next day ! Each and every one of use could stand to drive a bit less anyway.

[YouthTronix]

Originally posted by BillK:
yt,
The real thing to do is to not drive for a day and save that much gas. Not buying it on one particular day will not make a bit of difference if you just go and get it the next day ! Each and every one of use could stand to drive a bit less anyway.

im not the one who started this, im just passing it along. Apparently this has been on a few news stations and what not. Its not like anyone has anything to lose by trying, now do we?

I for one and tired of paying $2.50/gallon

[Chris396]

I drive a Geo Metro. I do my part.

[travis]

We see this everytime gas prices go up. Has it ever accomplished anything? NO!!!

[choptop]

High gas prices are one of the reasons I like having a diesel car...at least diesel prices are moderate when gas is high. They don't seem to go up (or down) as rapidly or as much as gas.

I really don't understand why we buy the majority of our oil from the middle east anyway. Mexico and the United States have huge oil reserves. Why don't we offer Mexico close to what the Arabs get per barrel? The shorter transport distance alone would make it worthwhile even at the same price. Why don't we tap our own reserves?

Let's tell the Arabs to stick their oil "where the sun don't shine" and see how long it takes for their economy to fall apart! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[DjD]

Originally posted by choptop:
High gas prices are one of the reasons I like having a diesel car...at least diesel prices are moderate when gas is high. They don't seem to go up (or down) as rapidly or as much as gas.

Diesel around here is about $2.35 a gal which is about the 89-91 octain price range.

I really don't understand why we buy the majority of our oil from the middle east anyway. Mexico and the United States have huge oil reserves. Why don't we offer Mexico close to what the Arabs get per barrel? The shorter transport distance alone would make it worthwhile even at the same price. Why don't we tap our own reserves?

CA refines more Gas than any other state and we pay the most for it. The short transportation distance doesn't seem to come to play!!

Let's tell the Arabs to stick their oil "where the sun don't shine" and see how long it takes for their economy to fall apart! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

IMO that would send out costs as the consumer soaring!! How about $5.00 a gal instead of $2.50 of so...


This was posted on the Chevelle site,

Riding out the Gas Spike

Friday, May 14, 2004
By Peter Van Doren and Jerry Taylor
With gasoline prices hovering around $2 a gallon, the blame game has begun and political partisans are looking to settle scores. As per usual, however, the political theatrics are drowning out the real but complicated story behind the price spike.


Rising crude oil prices explain some of the price increase. Since November, the price of West Texas crude has climbed $5.60 a barrel; translated into gasoline prices, that's about 13 cents per gallon.

But gas prices have jumped by more than twice that — by 29 cents per gallon.

The crude-price increase is not the result of production cutbacks. Despite OPEC's announced cuts, cartel production rose by about 1 million barrels a day since last year. Non-OPEC production is up another 1.5 million barrels a day.

But demand is increasing faster than production, particularly in China. Red-hot economic growth in Asia is driving the world crude market.

If we accept that about 13 cents of the price increase for a gallon of gas since November is because of surging demand for crude, that leaves 16 cents unaccounted for. Some of the price spike can be attributed to the temporary rise we see about this time every year, when refineries switch from making winter-time gas blends to more expensive but environmentally friendly summer blends.

Tight oil-refining capacity is also playing a role — not because environmentalists have shut the door on capacity expansions, but because demand for gasoline in the Far East is claiming almost all the previous unused capacity.

A tight market, however, means suppliers can charge more for gasoline. Profit margins in the refining sector are up, which means investment in new refining capacity will follow.

New environmental regulations, however, threaten to dampen the incentives to invest in new refining capacity for the American market. Of particular concern is a new federal rule that began to take effect this year requiring refineries to strip most of the sulfur out of gasoline (search). Retooling refineries to meet the new standard is a major one-time expense. Refineries in Europe and Japan have already done it to comply with similar regulatory standards. Many U.S. refineries will lay out the needed capital, but others are expected to simply close — and some already have.

Another Green hammer threatening the refining sector is the prohibition of MTBE (an oxygenate made from petroleum) that takes effect this year for gasoline sold in the California, New York and Connecticut markets.

The background: Federal law requires areas that are in violation of national clean air standards to use oxygenated fuel. Now that MTBE (search) is out of the picture, the only oxygenate left to those areas is ethanol (search). But ethanol costs more than MTBE-mixed fuel to make and transport; those costs will surely show up to some degree in gasoline prices this summer. Moreover, carving-up special gasoline regulations for different parts of the country increases the chance that unforeseen supply disruptions will send prices in those "island markets" soaring.

There's little we can do about world crude prices — and little we should do about the new sulfur rules. But the federal oxygenated-fuel requirement is another matter.

Before computer-controlled fuel-injection cars came along, the oxygenate rule did indeed reduce pollution. But 20 years later, the rule serves no environmental purpose. Instead, it is simply a welfare program for the Midwestern corn-based ethanol industry.

New York Gov. George Pataki has asked the EPA for a waiver of the oxygenate rule, but the EPA has not acted on his request. Not only should the EPA provide the waiver, Congress should scrap the oxygenate rule altogether.

That having been said, there's little else we can do but ride this price spike out. High prices will induce new supply faster than will governmental bureaucrats or politicians. There's no conspiracy afoot — just the periodic gyrations of Mr. Supply and Ms. Demand on the economic dance floor. Getting in their way will only prolong and worsen the spike.

Peter Van Doren is editor of Regulation magazine, published by the Cato Institute. Jerry Taylor is Cato's director of natural resource studies.

[Mark C]

You can't just divide the price of oil by 42 gallons to come up with a cost per gallon. Getting the oil here adds about a penny a gallon, processing adds about 5 cents a gallon, then distribution adds another penny or two per gallon. The retailer makes about 5 cents a gallon. The biggest rapist is the state and federal govenments. They add about another 50 cents a gallon in taxes. Under normal prices thats about 50 percent. (at 1.50 a gallon, the gas actually only costs 1.00 a gallon) What do you get for this amount of money?

A "barrel" of oil is 42 gallons. The total vloume of processed fuel from a barrel of oil is 44.2 gallons due to additives added during the processing.

Out of a Barrel of oil you get 19.5 gallons of gasoline, 9.2 gallons becomes Distillate fuel oil (Desiel), 4.1 gallons becomes Jet Fuel, 2.3 gallons becomes residential fuel oil, 1.9 gallons becomes liquified gas, 1.3 gallons becomes still gas, 1.8 gallons becomes petroleum coke, 1.3 gallons becomes asphault/road oil, 1.2 gallons becomes feedstock, .5 gallons becomes liubricating oil, .2 gallons becomes kerosene, and there is another .3 gallons of other petroleum product.

[choptop]

Strange, diesel prices locally for me are no more than $1.69 per gallon with regular unleaded running about $1.79, mid grade $1.89 and premium near or over $2.00. The price of diesel here in Texas is almost always within (+ or-) $0.1 of regular gas. Perhaps there is a difference in state taxes collected on diesel?

I know a little about local refining and local gas prices- I lived in Houston where quite a few barrels are refined nearby each year, yet Houston has some of the highest gas prices in the state (and you are right next to the refineries, go figure). They are required, however, to use reformulated gas due to non-compliance with epa air quality standards (more cost and tax). In Austin we are not subject to using reformulated gas (yet).

Just seems that transporting oil from the lower Gulf of Mexico to Houston for refining would have to be much cheaper than hauling it all the way from the middle east. The reality may be different. I haven't researched much about crude oil grades (ease of refining) and transportation costs (via super tanker).

I'm not against the government taxing us fairly, and the oil companies making a good profit, but the price of gas seems to jump at every conceivable turn of events (war, "shortages", national holidays, ceo needs a new summer home on the French Riviera, etc.).

[jackr]

The oil company consolidation (competition ?) and refinery capacities are driving the prices up. As previous post showed, price of the crude is only one cost driver. We in Az had a major gas pipeline break last year. Even though it only supplies something like 20-30% prices spiked out of site at all stations. I believe most of our fuel in the Phoenix metro area comes out of So. California. Why then is gas more expensive there than here ?

[gwbutch]

Not many refineries can make gasoline for Californina. California requirs CARB gas which takes "special" processing to make and not many refineries can make that gas; therefore, if there is a problem with one of those refineries, production goes down and prices go up.

[Mark C]

A Suezmax tanker (maximum siz that will pass thru the Suez Canal) has a capacity of 181,000 cu meters of crude (1,138457 barrels) This is equal to 47,815,141 gallons of crude. These tankers lease for about 20K a day on a long term lease and probably take 10 days to make a one way trip, so that means probably a 20 to 25 day round trip cycle. That's only a half million dollars to get 47 million gallons of oil from the gulf to the East Coast of the US. Pretty insignificant cost overall.

For those people with stock portfolios, you may want to research some tanker firms as they have performed very nicely in the last two quarter. One firm Norwegian American Tankers (NAT) returns over 20 percent on their stock price in dividends. Used to be in the mid thirty percent but their stock price increased from the low teens to the mid 20's over the past 4 months and lowered the return numbers.

[68ragtop]

Diesel is less expensive in the southern states for some reason, (taxes??)
In the northeast, diesel fuel rides up with heating oil, and prices will get huge in the winter months.

One of the major presidential cannidates to be elected later this year has been in favor of gas tax hikes for quite some time, do the research for yourself...

[YouthTronix]

Where I live diesel is about 2-3 cents more than 91 octane (premium) Premium is about $2.50/gallon for the cheapest stations (AM/PM, Citgo etc) How does it make any sense at all for diesel to cost more than even 87 octane gas?

[jumpstart]

Here in MA, the price for diesel fuel yesterday was $1.879/gal while regular unleaded was $1.999, mid-grade $2.099, and premium $2.199. Last summer diesel was over $2.00 while unleaded was generaly(?) around $1.80. Doesn't make much sense.