You'd think I was driving a truck!

I don't drive all that crazy but I have to get a full tank every week..

I heard on the radio that this area is suffering from some transportation issue..like the trucks with the gas cant get to the stations. so the stations next to the ones that are low on gas jack up their prices.

so its not only the war stuff but they are having issues with supply for VA/MD/DC...

What can ya do

 

My wife and I started driving together in her Camry it is just getting to expensive to drive seperately

 

Yea i just filled up for $42 in MD. Usually pay $30-35

 

I am so thankful we also have a SUV that uses regular gas and almost as good gas mileage as the MINI since is cheaper than filling the MINI with premium

 

It really sucks to have to put baby blue in the garage and drive the suv. Who whould have thunk it that my suv would cost less to fill up then a Mini? I am outraged that oil companies are making their biggest profits off of us being raped at the gas pumps..this really sucks. but I am still going to the dragon!

 

$43 here in South Florida for a full tank of premium! I think it's more expensive closer to Miami. Whew wee! Our other vehicle is a diesel Ford F350 truck. $98 for a full tank in that guy... but my stocks are doing well.

 

Geez. I may have to pump up the tires in my bicycle just to get to work!!!

 

Thank your lucky stars that we live in the USA. The average price for gas in Britain is now 96.5 pence/liter. That equates to $5.57/gallon at todays exchange rate!! Happy Motoring

 

Yep I guess I should shut my mouth and pay the 3.15!

 

If that is the way that you think pricing works, then buy some oil company stock.

Our oil companies are not owned by some dictator who is putting our money in his pocket. The oil companies are owned by your next door neighbor who has chosen to purchase stock in oil companies. No one is ripping you off but your friends and neighbors who are investors. Join them and make the millions that others are making.

 

How then do you explain record profits in the billions by big oil. Profits that are up dozens of percentages over last year. The only investors profiting are those holding millions of shares, not your average joe holding a couple thousand or so. Those on the board make the decisions about pricing in their own interest. The days of corporations being for the benefit of the people are over. Corporations are only driven by profit for its core investors. How do you explain the salary (600 million?) of the ceo of exxon? you think this is all above board? you think more than 1% of investors of big oil and other corporations are making millions? you got a lot to learn.

 

When a company lives with a sales that are in the billions, it only makes sense that when they profit, the profits will be in the billions. What is more relevant is the percentage of profit, not the amount.

Huh? You mean that the company only pays dividends to investors who have millions of shares??? I don't think so. Every investor makes the exact same percentage of income when they own the same kind of stock. If I own $1 of stock, I make the same percentage dividend as the owner of $1,000,000 of stock.

Now you are talking about something totally irrelevant to 'oil companies'. Now you are talking about abuse by management in salaries. This happens in all companies, not just the oil companies. If you don't like it, either change the laws or vote out the Board. And if it wasn't above board, you wouldn't know about it. You just don't like it, (which is a fair way to feel.)

No. But I do know that all investors are making the same percentage of income. The amount of income is based on the amount of investment. So is that the problem? You don't like the rich people to make more interest than you do?

I do think you are just upset. Understanding the way our capitalist economy works is not that hard. And taking advantage of it is open to all comers. There are no restrictions on who can own oil company stock.

 

Wow, some of you who think that oil companies actually control the price of oil are sadly mistaken. Oil is a commodity and thus the price of a barrel of oil is determined by the markets, supply and demand, plain and simple, with a risk adjustment ( e.g. - Terrorism risk, risk of the US attacking Iraq, etc.) The oil companies don't get to choose anything. You want cheaper oil, write your congressman.

That aside, I hate how people like demonizing oil companies like they should be producing oil for their health or something. They're corporations and the goal of a corporation is to make money. What of it? Did you see anybody whining when oil companies through the late 80s and 90s were only making $10 / bbl? What about when alot of the oil companies started going out of business because they couldn't continue as ongoing entities? I didn't think so. They're going to price at what the market will bear and apparently it'll bear some more since Americans aren't abandoning their gas guzzlers in droves for more fuel efficient cars.

 

I know that as well, but i thought I also heard on the news that oil companies are making their biggest profits ever. Maybe I was wrong in what I heard.

 

Saw a photo that goaljnky posted yesterday: gas at $4.09 in Beverly Hills!

 

That doesn't mean anything .... its just a statistic that the media throws out ... Big Bad Oil companies

Do a little math

I do not know the exact numbers but supposed Exxon makes 1% profit on every gallon sold. 1% at say $1/gallon is ... 1 cent.
1% at $3 is 3 cents. Of course they have bigger profits ...

As previously states, ALL businesses exist for one and one reason only ... to make money. Do you think they should cut their profit margin just because the price of oil goes up? That is not how free enterprise works. That would be called "socialism" or something else.

All car drivers get upset when gas goes up. But dont blame the oil companies since it is just a commodity like corn, wheat, and whatever ... When the weather is poor in Florida and OJ goes up in price, do you blame Minute Maid (or whoever) because of the weather? This is no different.

 

they have better public transportation though, right?

itd take me almost just as much gas to drive to a metro station than to commute...

 

oil companies CAN charge less they just would make less profit. Oil is a commodity and gasoline is a finished product. While opec and the markets set the price of crude, they have nothing to do with the finished gasoline which is priced by exxon, bp etc. And is usualy dictated by refining, transport and other costs. If everything were being done ethically, then wouldn't profit be DECLINING as the oil prices rise? I'm no math whiz but how can profit rise with more expensive oil, unless production costs were going down (which they aren't, they're also rising.) These companies are taking advantage of the ignorant masses to momentarily make a killing. And yes, we will keep buying gas guzzlers as long as we can.

Also if you want to learn a little about hgow corporations SHOULD be behaving read this
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/TCoBeij.html

 

Okay, so let's think about this. A barrel of oil is approximately $70 / bbl. A barrel of oil is equal to 42 gallons. Obviously, not all of the crude can be refined into usable gasoline, but let's just assume it can.
42 gallons of crude = 42 gallons of gasoline.
42 gallons of gasoline = $126 at the gas pump (@ $3 / gallon)

==> In this example crude oil is approximately 55% of the total gas price. Typically, it's closer to 60%.

That would make you assume that Shell is making 45%, right? Wrong. There's also taxes, refining costs, and distribution.

Let's talk about each one.

Taxes.
Do you want to take a guess how much taxes are in the price of a gallon of gas? The Federal gov't levies about 18.4 cents per gallon while state excise taxes are 20 cents per gallon. Also, we mustn't forget other applicable sales taxes, which amount to almost 50 cents. Thus, taxes are about 17% of a gallon of gas.

Refining costs.
Typically, refining costs are about 10% for a tank of regular. With premium, it's even higher since it takes a longer time, requires better technology, etc. However, we don't live in a typical time period at the moment. Refining capacity is tight plus spring is typically when refineries shut down to do maintenance. Refineries should all be back up and running around May/June which should alleviate some of our problems. However, we also mustn't forget that the gov't just mandated a switch from MTB to ethanol and has caused many refining shortages by not allowing enough of a time to change. I don't have exact numbers on this, but I reckon we're somewhere around 15% for refining costs.

Distribution costs.
Guess what. How does gasoline get to where we need it? By other gas-burning vehicles. Tankers burn approximately 80 metric tons of Poor quality crude, but that crude is still worth something and when the price of good crude goes up, the price of poor quality crude also goes up since all it needs is more refining processes. Anyways, transportation costs are also forced up due to their use of oil. Let's just round out the total 100% and say distribution is about 13% of a gallon of gasoline.


From these three things, four including the price of crude, large integrated oil companies make money from three of them.

Price of crude - They participate along with many NOCs (National Oil Companies) and split the profit with the countries. Typically profit splits are somewhere in the region of over 50%+ for the NOC and the rest for the company. However, the company has to do all the work and the NOC is just offering it's natural resources. I think we've already concluded that crude is a commodity and that it is priced by the market.

Refining Costs - As I've explained already, refinery capacity is tight and to a certain extent is also a commodity. You also have to remember that the extra crude that is produced at the margin is also poorer quality and thus requires even more refinement than normal quality crude oil, thus the reason why sour crude goes for such a great discount compared to good quality crude. To a certain extent, refined oil products can be shipped to whereever they fetch higher prices barring excessive transportation costs.

Distribution - Energy Inflation.

It pretty much means that gas is also a commodity and thus priced by market demand and supply forces.

 

ethics and big business, are you joking?

Business exist for ONE single reason .... to make money for their stockholders. .... They do not exist to make you or me feel good, or to give to some charity.

The very foundation of American economics is profit taking, building monopolies (of course now illegal), becoming the "big" buy in a small pond ... the little guy goes under and someone else takes over to create competition.

If I were a stockholder of Exxon, which I am not, and their CEO said they were going to cut down on profits because gas prices were higher he would be out on the street in a blink of an eye.

His, and the board of directors JOB, is to make the stockholder, money ...

I'm no math whiz but how can profit rise with more expensive oil, unless production costs were going down (which they aren't, they're also rising.)

good question. Arent alot of oil refinaries down because of Katrina? Dunno?

 

I also just took a look at the website and it's essentially a anti-capitalism website. Are you suggesting we resort to Communism? We all know how great those social experiments turned out.

 

While I may not be as knowledgable about the oil business as some, and you can throw all kinds of figures at me, I just can't seem to rectify the fact that profits in the business are not just up, but at an exaggerated rate; at the consumers' expense. When or if this all blows over we may find that there has been some kind of Enron like scandal in all this. I understand that we use the capitalist system, and I'm not advocating communism but maybe we've arrived at the point where our systems flaws are being exposed. Why for example should these CEOs and major shareholders make so much money. Is what they do so special? Are they contributing to our community? Maybe in a couple generations we will consider capitalism just as flawed as communism. The foundation of this country was supposed to be equal opportunity for all. It seems like we took a wrong turn somewhere and let greed get the better of us.

 

Major shareholders do not make more money than you would make if you decided to invest in oil stock. Everyone is treated equally.

If you invested $100, you'd make 15% interest or $15. If your neighbor invested $1,000,000, they'd make 15% interest or $150,000.

Are you thinking that you should be making more than 15% since they have more money and don't need it? Everyone makes the same amount, regardless of major or minor investment.

My earlier point was that it is not the 'oil companies' that are 'ripping us off' because this is just societies way of not taking responsibility for their decisions. The 'oil companies' are just a collection of investors. And the stock holders allow the CEOs (in every industry) to make salaries that are tied to the success of the business. If you believe that CEO's should be limited in salary to a particular dollar amount, that has nothing to do with the price of gas. That is a totally different discussion and is not what is causing the price of gas to be high.

 

\

More than half of that price is tax that the British goverment puts on gas to encourage conservation.

 

at least in md, the price of gas is set by the distributors in a 'zone' system.
(there have been major lawsuits about this in maryland, but it has been
deemed perfectly legal).

that's why gas is often cheaper at the highway reststops on I-95 than
say, potomac. i've often been amazed that premium gas is cheaper in
downtown baltimore than regular in montco. even better, different
distributors assign different zones.

afaik, the two exxons across from each other on rockville pike sit
in different zones and that why there's often a 5 cent or greater difference
in price.

they're just following that capitalistic adage of charging what the market
will bear.