Dropping gas prices

[4into4]

I think the best solution is for the liberals/green folks to stop buying gasoline, stop flying in airplanes, and shut off their air conditioners, and the furnaces they don't need anyhow with all this global warming we're causing. They can ride around on their bicycles smugly knowing they're not using the fossil fuels they're so vehemently opposed to. Meantime, with such a cut in demand, prices will fall dramatically as supplies overflow. That would be a good start, then we definatly need to start drilling in Alaska ( as 92% of it's citizens want us to do ) and building more refineries. Imagine what the prices would be, and what our economy could be!

[mtml427]

I don't consider myself a liberal but the idea that conservatives or liberals have much do with the current gas prices is nonsense (in my opinion). This gets down to supply and demand with the underlying policy of make as much as you can regardless of the ramifications. There are no new refineries because more supply would decrease the cost of oil products. There is no new technology on board to help solve our dependency problems because of the lobbyists who lobby against changing the status-quo. Oil companies are making record profits because there is no hesitation about s......ing you or me. The irony may be that their greed will come back to haunt them because of the straggle they have placed on our economy. Oil should be considered a necessary resource barred from commodity trading. Over 50% of the cost of oil is due to investor speculation. It is not entirely what the companies are being charged by foreign suppliers. One other oxymoron is the idea that Iraq is being allowed to keep all of the profits from their oil while we lose our trooops (or our children) and incurr huge debt being purchased by the Chinese which translates to a less valuable dollar.

[SP01715]

Originally Posted by mtml427

I don't consider myself a liberal but the idea that conservatives or liberals have much do with the current gas prices is nonsense (in my opinion). This gets down to supply and demand with the underlying policy of make as much as you can regardless of the ramifications. There are no new refineries because more supply would decrease the cost of oil products. There is no new technology on board to help solve our dependency problems because of the lobbyists who lobby against changing the status-quo. Oil companies are making record profits because there is no hesitation about s......ing you or me. The irony may be that their greed will come back to haunt them because of the straggle they have placed on our economy. Oil should be considered a necessary resource barred from commodity trading. Over 50% of the cost of oil is due to investor speculation. It is not entirely what the companies are being charged by foreign suppliers. One other oxymoron is the idea that Iraq is being allowed to keep all of the profits from their oil while we lose our trooops (or our children) and incurr huge debt being purchased by the Chinese which translates to a less valuable dollar.

Liberals have blocked the building of new refineries for years. Liberals have blocked the building of new nuclear plants for years. Liberals have consistantly required different fuel blends that cost more money to make (MTBE etc...) and usually are found to have problems and then the blend is changed again. Liberals have blocked the drilling of oil in Alaska and off the coast of California. Liberals have blocked to building of wind farms that would help to conserve oil (Ted Kennedy) because they would be built near their mansions. I could go on but I think you get my point. Other than that I agree with the rest of your statement.

[rms427]

Most of the profits for major oil companies comes from producing oil not refining and marketing products. Historically, refining and marketing has been a poor investment. The company I retired from (Chevron) actually lost money making and selling products in the US the last two quarters of 2007 because the price of oil has gone up faster than the price of gasoline. The yearly profit for Chevron for Refining and Marketing products was just under $4 billion for 2006. This was by far the best ever for downstream (marketing and refining).They sold 55.5 billion gallons of product that year so the profit for marketing and refining was around 7 cents per gallon of products sold. Overall profit including upstream (producing oil) and the chemical business was $17.138 billion or about 30 cents per gallon. Refining and marketing profits for 2005 was about $2.75 billion, 2004 was about $3.25 billion, 2003 was about $1.2 billion and 2002 was a loss of about $.4 billion.

Income taxes paid in 2006 were $14.8 billion. Taxes other than income taxes were $20.9 billion or a total of $35.7 billion in taxes. Capital and exploratory expenses $16.6 billion.

So the oil companies are currently making a lot of money but they sell a lot of product. Chevron's rate of return on capital employed for 2006 was 22.6%. I believe this is the best ever. Average for the years I worked for the company was about 10%. Just check the rate of return for some other industries.

The major oil companies control less than 5% of the total worldwide reserves of oil and gas. Most of the oil is controlled by countries that don't like us. We should have been developing alternate energy sources all along but oil has been and still is too cheap. We should have much higher taxes on petroleum products like most developed countries so that we conserve more and alternate energy sources become economic. Even at these prices we are still using more oil now than last year. Ok, enough is enough, I'll get off my soap box.

[bdeutsch]

First, let me state that I am a car guy and love the sound of a V8, V10, or V12 at full throttle.

Having said that though, current realities reflect nothing more, nothing less than a supply-demand curve. Price of crude today hit $111USD/barrel. About one-year ago or so, it was down around $60USD/barrel. Math seems pretty straight foreward to me on this.

Was in Europe last week (France and Ireland). Based on some very rough calculations, they are paying between $11.00 to $12.85 per gallon for their gas. You do not see many cars with V8s...

Net-Net of where I am going with this. We are all entitled to have whatever toys we want, that is one of the great things about this country. Unfortunately, these toys in particular, generally consume large quantities of what is getting to be a very expensive (by our standards, not the worlds) consumable. While I do not see crude staying at the $111USD/barrel level, I do not see it anytime soon going back much under $100; so we better get use to paying more.