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Gas Price Check

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AP Art Post (Guest)
>The Saudis are boycotting American goods.
>
>We should return the favor.
>
>An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.
>Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the
>coffers of Saudi Arabia.
>Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.
>
>
> Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I
>fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my
>family, and! my friends.
>
>I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the
>best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.
>
>These companies import Middle Eastern oil:
> Shell............................ 205,7 42,000 barrels
> Chevron/Texaco......... 144,332,000 barrels
> Exxon /Mobil............... 130,082,000 barrels
> Marathon/Speedway... 117,740,000 barrels
> Amoco......................... ...62,231,000 barrels
> If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18
>BILLION! (oil is now $55-$60 a barrel)
>
>
>Here are some large companies that
>do not import Middle Eastern oil:
>
> Citgo......................0 barrels
> Sunoco...................0 barrels
> Conoco............. .....0 barrels
> Sinclair................. 0 barrels < BR>> BP/Phillips............0 barrels
> Hess.......................0 barrels
> ARC0..................... 0 barrels
>
> All of this information is available from the Department of Energy
>and each is! required to state where they get their oil and how much
>they are importing.
>
> But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions
>of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.
>
> Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll
>explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!
>
> I'm sending this note to about thirty people.
>
>If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and
>
>those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) .. and
>
>so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people,
>
>we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!!
>
> If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten
>friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!
>
>If it goes one level further, you guessed it ..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION
>PEOPLE!!!
>
>
>Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would all >that
>take?
>
>If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day, all
>300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next eight >days!
John RoofJohn RoofElite P4P'er
A thought hit me while looking over the articles here. Since the major gas companies are making billions in quarterly profits, any chance the copier companies servicing their copiers could base their CPC's on what their local gas charges are? How would they react to paying $2.75 per copy, excluding toner? Just a wishful thought!
JasonRJasonRMaven VIP
$2.15 around in Tennessee.

Notice that price drop back in October? Right before the elections?

You might be interested to know that the price of a barrel of Crude oil DID actually drop during that time, but the price of gasoline dropped 500% more than the price of oil during that time. Right after the elections, gasoline prices went back up, even though the price of oil remained steady.
Old GloryOld GloryMaven VIP
You seem to suggest that there is or should be a 1 to 1 correlation between the cost of crude and the cost of gas as if a barrel of crude equated to a barrel of gas. That's like saying that if the cost of lumber goes up 10%, paper should go up 10%. It just doesn't work that way.
You are trying to suggest that Big Oil would give up billions of dollars in profits in the hopes that it MIGHT influence voters to vote Republican as if people who vote care about nothing but the cost of gas. I think if big oil wanted to invest billions in the hope of influencing the elections, they could find a more effective way to do it.
Old GloryOld GloryMaven VIP
Help me to understand this...first of all, the elections are 8 months away so we really aren't "around election time" and I don't understand what it is that would make the prices go down. Do the elections make the refining process cheaper? Do foreign oil companies predicate their price on our election cycle? Do US companies sacrifice profits? If so why? Do the pharmacuetical companies lower their prices around election time? What about insurance companies? Do cars get cheaper as well?
I'm sorry, I just don't get the logic here.
AP Art Post (Guest)
For those who beleive... Wink, as I do, gas is the one product that affects everyone, we use it everyday, each and every single one of us (except for people who do not own a vehicle). I have always believed and still believe that energy prices are manipulated by governments, commodity markets, traders etc. Historically gas prices have eroded prior to a Presidential Election.

I also believe our government hides many things from the general public Freedom of Information Act:

Scope
The act explicitly applies only to federal government agencies. These agencies are under several mandates to comply with public solicitation of information. Along with making public and accessible all bureaucratic and technical procedures for applying for documents from that agency, agencies are also subject to penalties for hindering the process of a petition for information. If “agency personnel acted arbitrarily or capriciously with respect to the withholding, [a] Special Counsel shall promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted against the officer or employee who was primarily responsible for the withholding.” [2] In this way, there is recourse for one seeking information to go to a Federal court if suspicion of illegal tampering or delayed sending of records exists. However, there are nine exemptions, ranging from a withholding “specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy” and “trade secrets” to “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” [2] Thus, in all cases, the President has unlimited power in declaring something off-limits or necessarily classified in the concern of national safety.
JasonRJasonRMaven VIP
quote:
Originally posted by Old Glory:
Do US companies sacrifice profits? If so why?


The Theory in general is that the large U.S. Companies sacrifice their profits (which can be determined by looking at the price of a barrel of crude vs. the price of a gallon of gas) around elections when they are wanting the existing party to stay in power.

The price of crude may also fall some, but the amount that the price of gas at the pump drops is significantly higher than can be attributed to the slight decline in crude.

As far as it being "near the election" I'd say it is very near the election in some states, such as Wisconsin, who has their primary today. In Wisconsin, you can vote for any candidate regardless of your party affiliation. so this is probably the day people in Wisconsin think about who they will vote for the most of any day this year besides election day.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/stojan1.html

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/09/big_oil.html

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/11/gas_prices112.html

We'll know if this theory checks out again in November. Here's my prediction. Gas climbs back up over 3.00 soon after the primaries are over. It hangs there thru the summer, then (as always happens during the fall) prices begin to decline. The trick will be to measure the ratio of gas vs. crude to see if the U.S. companies are taking less profit per barrel and to compare it to the ratio of last year when there was no election.

If gas is over 3.00 on Election day, I'll eat my hat Smile
Old GloryOld GloryMaven VIP
I still don't understand why. I assume you believe that it is the out-going administration (I beleive they call them lame-ducks for a reason) that is manipulating the price of oil? What do they have to gain? Assuming you are right and gas always goes down the year of an election, what did Clinton gain from each of his two terms. Improved Legacy??? I don't think the price of oil did anything to change his legacy. Can anyone give me a why?
Old GloryOld GloryMaven VIP
Sorry Jason, I responded to Art before reading your response to me. It is somewhat comforting to know that there is other intelligent life besides you two that believe this. Thanks for giving the answer to my "why" question. However, it still seems illogical to me. Those same profits that are "given up" in the name of encumbancy would yield a far better result if invested in advertising for the encumbant party. Do you really think that big oil thinks that 10% off the pump price will equate to more votes for the encumbant party than billions of dollars donated to the encumbant party? 527 orgainizations can except unlimited donations and speak to any cause as long as it doesn't support a particular candidate by name. Spend those billions on a cleverly crafted message and the impact would be 100's of times greater than temporary relief at the pump.
JasonRJasonRMaven VIP
quote:
Originally posted by Old Glory:
It is somewhat comforting to know that there is other intelligent life besides you two that believe this.


First, that was pretty insulting.

Second, let me clear up my person beliefs on this subject. I believe that gas prices fall around the time of an election.

That's it.

As far as the why and how of it, I don't know and I provided that information in response to your question.

I think some of the confusion you have is in finding a motive for a price drop. The motive is that higher prices mean more anger at the incumbent. The incumbents in the elections we are looking at are the Republicans (notice I am not and have never suggested that the politicians have anything to do with this, they are just the alleged beneficiaries). During the Clinton era, it was the Republican congress, and since then it has been President Bush.

I think everyone would have to agree that having Republicans in control would be better for the oil companies than having Democrats in control. Democrats have specifically stated that they would like to impose windfall taxes on the oil companies. Since Exxon-mobil made $40 billion in 2006, I think losing even 10% of that to a new tax would far outweigh any advertising they might do (in 2007, they spent $40 million on advertising, that's 1/1000th of their profit).

Here's what an Economist had to say:

“As an economist, I cannot speculate on the politics that may be involved, but my recent research suggests that the recent drop cannot be explained by the drop in crude prices or the change in inventories alone. From an economic standpoint, therefore, it certainly raises questions in my mind as to whether the high prices we saw this summer were in any way justified by market fundamentals. I do not believe that they were."
Old GloryOld GloryMaven VIP
I really did not mean that as an insult. I just have never heard the theory before and truly thought that it was specualtion only on the part of the two of you. I only meant that the fact that it is a theory held by more than just you, adds credibility to it.
Because no one stated it as a Republican or Democrat issue, I assumed that it was neither. To present it as a Republican Conspiracy clears up alot of my confusion.
By the way, oil always goes up in the winter months, election year or not, because the demand is higher. Be sure to make your comparisons to the same period of time during non-election years.
NealNealDocusultant Elite P4P'er
$3.19 a gallon this morning in NorthCentral Indiana.
Now don't take this for gospel but I have heard from local officials that this most recent rise in gas costs are not for political reasons but instead a recent fad starting in England and sweeping Europe and Asia as the greased back look of the 50's is back and the oil once used for gasoline production is now being sent for the making of Brillcreme and Vitalis.
JasonRJasonRMaven VIP
quote:
Originally posted by Old Glory:
I really did not mean that as an insult.


Thanks, I guess I read it wrong, no worries
Smile

And remember, The conspiracy theorists think this isn't so much a "Republican" conspiracy (ok, well some of them do but hey) as a "Big Business" conspiracy with the Oil Companies looking out for their best interests by keeping the people most likely to leave them alone in power.

$2.87 a Gallon for regular here in Middle TN.
John RoofJohn RoofElite P4P'er
I agree with the conspiracy theory moreso than the Democrat/Republican theory, because BIG OIL knows that if they can throw enough $$ into the game, then they can do whatever they want, and they will. BIG OIL does not want to build any new refineries here in the US because they would not be able to control their profits the way they are now. Everyone has their hand in each gallon of gas that is bought. State taxes, Federal taxes, Local taxes, Exise taxes, everyone gets a piece of the pie. And lets not forget the billions upon billions of profits BIG OIL gets each month.
We all have theories, complaints, and points of view on the gasoline wars, but the one thing we can all agree on is that we are paying too much! I bought gas today in Morganfield Kentucky for $3.09 per gallon, but I hear you can buy a gallon in Saudi Arabia for $.25.
J JayDocusultant P4P'er
The oil business is very complex. It's much like the stock market.

Let's say you own a gas station. You buy a 1000 gallons of gas at $1.00 per gallon. You sell it for $2.00 per gallon. Your make a nice profit Smile

BUT, you call to order another 1000 gallons and it's now selling for $2.00 per gallon. There go your profits.
You must raise your price to meet the new wholesale price. While your $2.00 gas is in the ground the price drops to $1.00 per gallon. What do you do?

Refinery issues, pipline problems, political pressures, weather, and other issues affect the price of oil.

Oil is traded on the futures market (i.e gambling that it will go up or down. Mostly upSmile

The cost of getting the oil out of the ground and refining it into gas is pretty much static. The price that oil is sold at is dynamic.

The oil companies can't help but not making profits if the oil price goes up. Just think if toner was sold the same way.

There are some underlining issues that affect the price, but it's not a big conspiracy. IMO. It's just business.

The only thing you can do is invest in oil.
NealNealDocusultant Elite P4P'er
I have just begn a new business venture. With more and more cars becoming available in the Orient, China specifically, I have acquired 1,000 used rickshaws and will be deploying them in large metropolitan areas of the United States. I am now looking for workers to man them but you must have a green card or provide proof of citizenship.(unless of course Americans find this job below them,which at that time green cards will be optional)
John RoofJohn RoofElite P4P'er
I know it doesn't make you feel any better, but Kentucky and Illinois are around $3.16. Someone sent me an email the other day about saving at the pump. I have attached it here, and hope it helps others.
Helpful Tips on Pumping Gas (Good information)
I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon..

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose , CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
D DRichard (Guest)
If only one of our presidential candidates would take a JFK-type approach to eliminating our dependency on oil. Kennedy set a goal to get to the moon within a certain time and government programs (and budgets) supported it. Why not set a similar goal to find and implement viable alternatives and REALLY support it? We don't need to use our fuel dollars to support unfriendly regimes around the world. Using our own reserves would be no more than a bandaid, a drop in the bucket and a temporary one at that. My vote would go to the candidate who comes up with that plan.
Old GloryOld GloryMaven VIP
I got this today...

Are you aware that the Saudis are boycotting American products?

Shouldn't we return the favor? Can't we take control of our own destiny and let these giant oil importers know who REALLY generates their profits, their livings? How about leaving American Dollars in America and reduce the import/export deficit?

An appealing remedy might be to boycott their GAS. Every time you fill up your car you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just purchase gas from companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill up my tank, I'm sending my money to people who I get the impression want me, my family and my friends dead. Don't you think it might be of interest to know which oil companies import Middle Eastern oil and which do not?

These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell..................................... 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco.................. 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil........................ 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway............ 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco................................. 62,231,000 barrels


And CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela by Dictator Hugo Chavez who hatesAmerica and openly avows our economic destruction! (We pay Chavez's regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues!)

The U.S. currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $95 per barrel, that's over $524 million PER DAY ($191 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!!!


Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
Sunoco........................ 0 barrels
Conoco.................... 0 barrels
Sinclair.................... 0 barrels
BP / Phillips................ 0 barrels
Hess. ......................... 0 barrels
ARC0..................................0 barrels
Maverick....................... 0 barrels
Flying J. ................................0 barrels
Valero........................... 0 barrels
• I AM GOING TO ADD THE FOLLOWING.
. Murphy Oil USA, sold at Wal-Mart, is from South Arkansas

. They also give scholarships to all children in their town who finish high school and are legal US citizens.

All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have a real impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. With the help of the internet, it's really simple to do. Now, don't wimp out at this point....keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!


I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at only ten more (30 x 10 = 300)....and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)....and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers!!!!!!!

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it....THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE-the entire population of theUnited States of America!!!!

Again, all you have to do is forward this message to 10 people. How long would that really take you? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people, within one day all 300 MILLION people could theoretically be contacted during the next eight days!
JasonRJasonRMaven VIP
Snopes says:

Origins: The two most important basic facts about this misguided scheme for lowering gas prices are:
• It was written several years ago, when the world oil market was considerably different than it is today.
• It wasn't accurate even at the time it was written, containing many gross statistical errors and exhibiting a severely flawed grasp of oil industry economics.
Although the message quoted above doesn't address where (outside of the Middle East) we import oil from, many people come away from reading it with the mistaken impression that most of the USA's crude oil is imported from the Middle East. It isn't. According to some recent figures regarding crude oil imports, in December 2007 only 23% of the USA's crude oil imports came from countries classified by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as Persian Gulf exporters (i.e., Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain). The top six countries (by percentage of total USA imports) supplying crude oil to the USA in December 2007 were:
Canada: 18.0%
Saudi Arabia: 17.0%
Venezuela: 12.7%
Mexico: 12.6%
Nigeria: 12.3%
Angola: 4.5%

Moving along, we find that nearly all of the statistics offered in the piece quoted above are erroneous or outdated:
Top 4 companies that import middle eastern oil

Shell 205,742,000 barrels of oil
Chevron/Texaco 144,332,000
Exxon/Mobil 130,082,000
Marathon 117,740,000
This information is quite outdated. In 2007, the top four companies importing oil from the Persian Gulf were as follows (figures given in barrels):

Motiva Enterprises: 160,876,000
Exxon/Mobil: 155,181,000
Valero: 153,519,000
Marathon: 64,134,000

Here are some large companies that do not import much Middle Eastern oil:

Citgo 0 barrels of oil
Sunoco 0
Conoco 0
Sinclair 0
Phillips 0

Some of these numbers were inaccurate to begin with, and consolidation in the oil industry has since wiped out some of the true zero figures as non-importing companies merged with (or were acquired by) importing companies. According to the DoE, in 2007 the above-listed companies imported oil from Persian Gulf countries in the following quantities (figures given in barrels):

Citgo: 949,000
Sunoco: 0
ConocoPhillips: 22,992,000
Sinclair: 0
BP North America: 34,099,000

So, "doing the math" and multiplying these figures by a price of $100/barrel, we calculate that supporting only the oil companies listed above would still be putting $5.8 billion dollars per year into the coffers of Persian Gulf countries.

Statistics aside, the glaring fallacy here is the suggestion that we could possibly buy all our gasoline only from a few select oil companies. This notion is like claiming
that we could put the big grocery chains out of business if we all bought our food only from small mom & pop stores, but ignoring the fact that these small shops couldn't possibly come close to supplying all our grocery needs. Some of the oil companies named above are relatively small (which is a large part of the reason why they don't necessarily import from the Middle East) and could not satisfy the demand that would be created if a significant portion of the USA's consumer base were to shun all the largest oil companies — unless they bought up the output of the companies we were supposed to be avoiding in the first place (or, alternatively, unless they raised their prices sky-high).

Moreover, the idea that oil companies sell gasoline only through their branded service stations, and therefore if you don't buy gasoline from Shell-branded gas stations you're not sending money to Shell (or, by extension, the Middle East), is wrong. Oil companies sell their output through a variety of outlets other than their branded stations (and in countries other than the U.S.); as well, by the time crude oil gets from the ground into our gasoline tanks, there's no practical way for consumers to know exactly where it came from. (A good deal of the crude oil purchased from Russia, for example, was oil from Iraqi fields sold through Russian middlemen.)

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted:
Economics Prof. Pat Welch of St. Louis University says any boycott of "bad guy" gasoline in favor of "good guy" brands would have some unintended (and unhappy) results.

Although foreign relations wax and wane, Welch says, the law of supply and demand is set in stone. "To meet the sudden demand," he says, "the good guys would have to buy gasoline wholesale from the bad guys, who are suddenly stuck with unwanted gasoline."

So motorists would end up buying Arab oil anyway — and paying more for it, because they'd be buying it at fewer stations.

And yes, oil companies do buy and sell from one another. Mike Right of AAA Missouri says, "If a company has a station that can be served more economically by a competitor's refinery, they'll do it."

Right adds, "In some cases, gasoline retailers have no refinery at all. Some convenience-store chains sell a lot of gasoline — and buy it all from somebody else's refinery."

St. Louis University's Welch says, "The e-mail presupposes that you know who the supplier is, and that's not always the case."
Finally, what this scheme proposes is merely a symbolic solution rather than a practical one, because even if the USA stopped importing oil from the Middle East, other countries will still purchase it. (Japan alone, for example, generally buys as much or more oil from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait than the USA does.)

Complex problems rarely lend themselves to simple, painless answers. Simply shifting where we buy gasoline isn't nearly as good a solution as the much tougher choice of sharply curtailing the amount of gasoline we buy.
Last edited by JasonR
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