Ridiculous gas prices

[SgtQ 0]

 

 

Are the gas prices changing your plans at all?

 

It pisses me off :cursing: when I see how the profits for the oil companies have skyrocketed. We all have heard it, and it still holds true : "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". But as far as changing my plans any. . . NOPE ! I fish period. I have a friend I make most of my out of town trips with. The only thing that has changed is I fish harder, sun up to sun down. I'm not going to let "The Man" keep me down!! :butt:

[MIKE*A 0]

Gas spiked @ $3.15 a gallon here Thursday. I got motivated into riding my bicycle more at the end of the summer. I'm fortunate that here in the Dayton area we have 3 great Smallmouth rivers running thru the city, all with interjoining bike trails on them. A new bike trail extension heading North up the Great Miami is being built as we speak right at the end of my street. If i jump on this trail SB and cut East, I can connect downtown with another spur that will run me East into Greene county and connect with the Little Miami river (A State and National Scenic river and great fishery). In the past couple of years, there has been a whole new "weekend cottage industry" opened in Greene County on the LMR bike trail with campgrounds, B&B 's, restaurants, etc. I have converted my old pull behind "kiddie bike trailer" into a fishing/camping trailer so that I can load it up behind my bike and go. I guess the trade off is less time on the water(maybe) and more time peddling, but I figure it's better for me and may open up some areas to me that in the past i drove right by.

 

Mike

[maddog48 0]

I live within 2 hours of some fantastic fishing. One river is less than 10 minutes from my front door. I still drive to see my parents about every 3 months so I can fish Wisconsin a couple times a year. I've fished with Steve twice in Michigan and have a third trip in about 2 weeks. I won't let the the price of gas stop me from enjoying myself. I just cut back on a few other things to make up for it.

 

 

Mike

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

with excellent fishing wthin a mile from me it isn't hurting that but being a repoman driving a dodge 2500 4x4 with a v10 it has changed my work habits 35 gallon gas tank at $3.29 per gallon converts into 1 car repoed for a fillup

[Fly Tyer Guy 0]

 

 

Are the gas prices changing your plans at all?

 

It pisses me off :cursing: when I see how the profits for the oil companies have skyrocketed.

 

 

Exactly! Gas is a big rip off, The oil companies are making redord profits! They make Billions and billions and they still want more, They can't even spen all the money they are making! Gas could be $1.50 or less!

[Chase Creek 0]

It all boils down to greed, $$$. For several years in the past, I would take a week or two off and bum around N Michigan annoying the Brook trout. Past couple of years I've more or less fished in one area cuz of the cost.

I got rid of a Ford 15 passenger van with a 10 cyl. Triton engine last year. I could hear it sucking gas as I drove along the highway. Got a Dodge Dakota 6 cyl truck, boy can I tell the difference!

[Guest]

I'm all for capitalism and people making what they can on their product or service, but when you are making record profits and the consumer has no other option, something is very wrong.

 

We need to open up our oil reserves. We lost a huge one, if memory serves it's the second biggest in the world outside of the middle east, during the Clinton administration. Over-exuberant environmentalism has locked up much of the rest and this plays into the hands of those who would force Americans to drive tiny death-risk vehicles, and do all kinds of anti-humanity stuff to their lives.

 

I fully support alternative fuel sources, but they have to be viable to do any good. The ethanol craze has stalled due to the tremendous shift in the corn supply, and as it turns out reports claim it uses twice the energy per unit to make ethanol than it gives back.

 

 

[day5 0]

and as it turns out reports claim it uses twice the energy per unit to make ethanol than it gives back.

 

 

It is not twice........ but close! What I hate about corn is it pollutes the rivers like crazy!!! As far as Gas profits the oil companies make 10 cents on the dollar that is not that much to cut. If they cut there profits in half you would only save 5 cents per dollar or 15cents per gallon or $3.75 per tank. The biggest cost that can be cut in fuel is the tax. Gas in Canada is expensive because they have high taxes. Not because they do not have any oil. Gas in Europe is higher because they do not have much of there own and they have high taxes. If you want taxes cut on everything vote for Hillary! LOL!!! Sorry I know we are not supposed to get political here but I take taxes seriously. They cripple the people and the capitol raised is used to create dependence on the government. So cut 55+ cents out of gas with taxes and bingo you save $12.50 dollars per tank. The other thing that would bring down the cost would be to go away form 40 different regulations of the make up of fuel and go to one US standard of fuel. See California and Nevada require different types of gas. If the refineries could only make one type it would make things a lot easier. The third this is to increase supply locally. Or US crude. But the government is hog tied by the environ lobbies so we are screwed. So Problem No 1 is the Government taxes. No2 the Government regs. No3 the Governments run by enviro lobbies. Hmmm I sense a theme! So IMHO the BIG OIL guys can make what ever they want heck they drill it refine it truck it. All the Government does is rape it!!

[day5 0]

 

 

Are the gas prices changing your plans at all?

 

It pisses me off :cursing: when I see how the profits for the oil companies have skyrocketed.

 

 

Exactly! Gas is a big rip off, The oil companies are making redord profits! They make Billions and billions and they still want more, They can't even spen all the money they are making! Gas could be $1.50 or less!

 

 

Not exactly see above! Heck if your local gas station makes more than 10 cents a gallon it is a good day. Most stations only make 2 to 8 cents a gallon. Then you have to factor in credit card fees. (Due to our dumbass addiction to spending with plastic) I had a customer of mine who made $3700 in fuel profit. But then turned around and paid 4200 to MasterCard! So help your local economy buy a fountain pop and pay cash every time you hit the local gas station!!!

[Fly Tyer Guy 0]

I mean the Oil Companies, Not Gas Stations, The stations are getting hurt too, the big oil tycoons are making the record profits, There is no need for that!

[day5 0]

I mean the Oil Companies, Not Gas Stations, The stations are getting hurt too, the big oil tycoons are making the record profits, There is no need for that!

 

 

As far as Gas profits the oil companies make 10 cents on the dollar that is not that much to cut. If they cut there profits in half you would only save 5 cents per dollar or 15cents per gallon or $3.75 per tank. The biggest cost that can be cut in fuel is the tax. Gas in Canada is expensive because they have high taxes. Not because they do not have any oil. Gas in Europe is higher because they do not have much of there own and they have high taxes. So cut 55+ cents out of gas with taxes and bingo you save $12.50 dollars per tank

 

I mean both. Neither is making to much. the government is the problem not big oil not (to a point) Not the station owner. If big oil cut there profit in half you would save $.15 per gallon!!!! $3.75 per 25 gallons!!! the Government is taking $12.00 PLUS per 25 gallons 4 TIMES WHAT BIG OIL IS MAKING 4!

[day5 0]

PLEASE GO HERE!!!! http://www.laughtergenealogy.com/blog/note...line-state.html

 

 

 

And here! http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/ja...ulva_05-03.html

 

Its like thoes who say bush need to release oil form the strategic reserve.. TO DO WHAT lower gas prices for 5 minutes $.05 a gallon! Or the big oil exects should not make so much?!????? If the big oil exect gave back 50% of HIS money it would lower gas prices for how long? And how much? We sell 386million gallons a day for 1 billion 585 million dollars. Give or take So big oil makes 427 million a day. Gosh and to think that BP is the 5th and Exxon is the 6th largest oils company in the world I wounder what the Saudi Arabian oil makes a day? If only we did not have to buy oil form the saudi's who may or may not support terrorism? :dunno: Oh China's oil company is 4th that is something to worry about! Big oil makes SOOOO much cause we buy SOOOO much. I do not see there profits as insane. If you ask for their profits to be shared in some sort of tax that is socialism. If you ask for their profits to be cut that is socialism. Socialism is the sharing of wealth. It will er is destroying our country. Look at the way your dad and grandfather were they never needed help form the government to live they busted their humps to have a family. That generation is long gone now is the time of dependence and jealousy. My grandfather was paralyzed in WW2 shot 11 times in the back. He wore 2 leg braces and had a sever limp. He worked construction for his entire life up and down ladders carrying lumber. When a hurricane (he lived in so. fla.) damaged his house he did not call FEMA for a check and a construction crew. Heck Id be surprised if he even called his insurance company. He just fixed it! Now a days he would have been on government assistance and had spent 2 year in a government trailer while the government fixed his house. Sorry for the rant IM just sick of the they make this and I pay this boo hoo. YOU CAN EFFECT ONLY ONE THING IN LIFE AND THAT IS YOU. Well and your kids but screwing them up is easy LOL!!! If you want more money bust your ass and make more! Its not a easy thing to do I know but Ill never give up! Start your own business to make side money. Find a new job (unless you live in Michigan Or Mississippi cause there are none available!) Go back to school! Do not expect you government to do it for you! We are supposed to be independent not dependent! Oh by the way the government make $792500000 dollars a day on gas taxes! Just FYI

[Harold Ray 0]

Gas in Canada is expensive because they have high taxes. Not because they do not have any oil. Gas in Europe is higher because they do not have much of there own and they have high taxes. So cut 55+ cents out of gas with taxes and bingo you save $12.50 dollars per tank

 

Very good posts, day 5, and you are exactly right. The cost of a barel of oil, from which gasoline, comes, is split many ways, and little of it goes to gas stations or Big Oil, no matter what you think. There is tremendous demand across the globe, especially in the developing countries and China, for all natural resources, and oil and gas are at the top of the list. The Spot Market is where much is bought, and the prices there are determined by the latest risks and what the market is willing to bear. It doesn't give a darn for what you or I think; its totally driven by money and whose willing to pay it.

 

As day 5 said, if you want to get mad, get mad at the government and the procastinators you elected and sent to washington, they have done nothing to protect the U.S. from this possibility for decades. They cater to every groups desires while pandering for votes, and several of those groups are environmentalist. We do have to protect our world, but we can do that and pump oil, too.

 

The gas tax, like the alcohol and tobacco taxes, although I don't use either of those, adds most, or much, of the cost to those commodities you buy.

 

So get mad at the real culprits; the people who sit in Washington and let this happen.

 

Ray

 

[day5 0]

Thanks Ray! Ive never heard of the spot market ill have to research that one.

[Harold Ray 0]

This is the way the oil market works. Good luck on dropping the prices. The only way to lower prices is to develop a massive new source of crude, reduce dependence on oil, or develop new sources of energy. None are going to happen any time soon.

 

Types of Oil Transactions

 

Oil is sold under a variety of contract arrangements and in spot transactions. Oil is also traded in futures markets, a mechanism designed to distribute risk among participants on different sides (or with different expectations) of the market, but not generally to supply physical volumes of oil. Both spot markets and futures markets provide critical price information for contract markets, and so they are discussed first.

 

A spot transaction is an agreement to sell or buy one shipment of oil under a price agreed-upon at the time of the arrangement. In a sense, a consumer's purchase of gasoline is a kind of spot transaction -- the consumer needed supply, found the price acceptable, and made no promise to make additional purchases. More traditionally, however, the oil industry uses the spot market to balance supply and demand. When a company temporarily has too much supply for its own needs, it will offer some for sale in the spot market. Likewise, if it needs additional volumes to meet a demand spike, or because supply is unexpectedly curtailed, it will purchase oil on a cargo-by-cargo, shipment-by-shipment basis. In recent years, the growth of "merchant refiners" has depended on viable spot markets. These independent refiners manufacture products not to fill their own marketing networks, but to sell the oil in third-party transactions to the highest bidder.

 

Prices in spot markets send a clear signal about the supply/demand balance. Rising prices indicate that more supply is needed, and falling prices indicate that there is too much supply for the prevailing demand level. There are "spot markets" for different commodities and qualities (crude oil, for instance, as distinct from gasoline or heating oil, and low sulfur crude oil as distinct from high sulfur crude oil), and for different regions (Rotterdam/Northwest Europe, New York Harbor/U.S. Northeast, Chicago/U.S. Midwest, Singapore/South East Asia, and the U.S. Gulf Coast, for instance). [For further information on crude oil quality, refer to the section on Oil Refining.] The evolution of a regional market into a pricing center has its foundation in logistics. These markets have a ready supply, transportation choices, storage facilities, and many buyers and sellers. [For further information about regional markets, refer to the section on Trade.]

 

Spot prices are reported for transactions in these different markets and prices in spot markets are relatively "transparent" -- they are reported by a number of sources and widely available in a variety of media. While some of the most active spot markets offer deals on supplies that will be available in the future (a "forward" physical market), most focus on "prompt" delivery of readily available volumes.

 

The prices paid on the futures markets further enhance the availability of price information to all aspects of the oil market. While spot markets involve the trade of physical barrels of oil, futures markets are designed as a financial mechanism. While everyone in the market wishes to buy at a low price and sell at a high price, buyers and sellers are on opposite sides of the transaction and their risks are inherently different. Different market participants may also have varying appetite for risk, and speculators may wish to gamble that the price will move one way or another. The futures market, a zero-sum game where there is a buyer for every seller, distributes the risk among market participants according to their positions and appetites.

 

A futures contract is a promise to deliver a given quantity of a standardized commodity at a specified place, price and time in the future. In practice, oil is seldom actually delivered under a futures contract. At futures exchanges such as the New York Mercantile Exchange or International Petroleum Exchange in London, oil is traded literally by open outcry. Offers to buy and sell are given vocally, and by hand signals; in this "recognition trading," the buyer and the seller each acknowledge the completion of the transaction by recognizing the other party across the physical trading area. The exchange records the pairings of buyers and sellers, and reports the transaction prices. Electronic services then report these prices with minimal lag. Furthermore, prices are available throughout the day from the exchanges via the Internet, are published in specialty trade publications and daily newspapers throughout the country, and are reported on a weekly basis by the Energy Information Administration. The ready availability of the reported prices has enhanced "price transparency" -- the ability of any market participant to assess the prevailing price level.

 

Existence of the futures market also allows any participant to "lock in" the prevailing price for future deliveries, such as heating oil prices for the winter heating season. Such a strategy, called a hedge, involves a series of transactions, offsetting profits or losses on a futures transaction against losses or profits on the physical purchase or sale of oil. By limiting the uncertainty over future costs, the hedge allows companies or consumers to make other choices. A marketer, for instance, can offer fixed price arrangements to customers, or a consumer (primarily a bulk consumer) can budget with confidence.

 

As described in the chapter on Stocks, the fact that futures contracts are traded for each month for 18 months in the future provides a forward price curve -- a picture of expected prices in the future. (It is important to note that trade volumes are extremely low for more distant months.) Thus, the futures market also allows a mechanism for companies to profit from changes in market prices by holding nearly risk-free inventories in a rising market. Furthermore, options and other well-developed over-the-counter financial mechanisms allow participants to limit their risk without eliminating their benefit in the event of higher or lower than expected prices. The mechanisms together have allowed companies to offer "price cap" and/or fixed price deals to their customers.

 

Contract arrangements in the oil market in fact cover most oil that changes hands. In earlier decades, contracts covered almost all oil, with terms that were infrequently readjusted. Even the pricing term of the contract was only seldom re-examined. Prices at all levels of the oil market were relatively stable. Pricing power was more dominantly in the hands of the seller, because oil availability was the paramount issue for purchasers. After the very high prices of the early 1980's, demand declined and supply increased, leading to significant price declines. At the same time, additional players (both countries and companies) entered the oil market. Worries over supply faded. It became apparent that the old constant price called for in most contracts was too high -- higher than the purchaser would pay in the abundantly-supplied open market. Purchasers rebelled, with many abandoning contracts and relying instead on the spot market. To coax them back, suppliers granted pricing terms tied to a market indicator -- the spot market, for instance, or the futures market. Thus while most oil flows under contract, its price varies with spot markets. Contract arrangements for different products are discussed below.

 

Most of the crude oil that flows in international trade is priced by formula: a base price, usually based on a market indicator, plus or minus a quality adjustment. A common pricing term sets a base of a spot price published by a particular source or publication. For crude oil sold into the U.S. Gulf Coast, for instance, the base would commonly be the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil. This high quality crude oil indigenous to the U.S. Southwest is an informal benchmark for the region. Analogously, crude oil sold into Northwest Europe is often tied to the spot price for the North Sea's Brent Blend, and crude sold into Singapore or other South East Asian locations is often tied to Dubai. The base price is then adjusted for quality. (As explained in the section on Oil Refining, the value of a crude oil is based on the ease with which it can be refined into high value products. Thus, denser crude oils with higher sulfur content are worth less than lighter, low sulfur ones.) Finally, the credit terms affect the realized price.

 

Other pricing terms have also been common in the past. One, briefly in use in the mid-1980's, based the price of a crude explicitly on the spot prices of the refined products it could produce ("netback"). The netback proved ultimately unresponsive to markets. For instance, high refinery runs would create a relative over-supply of products, thus reducing the market price of refined product and hence also the back-calculated price of the crude oil. The price signal to the refiner -- that he was overproducing -- was thus muted at best

 

In the United States, some domestically-produced crude oil is sold at a posted price. Named for the sheet that was literally posted in a producing field, posted prices are established by the buyers, usually refiners, but sometimes firms that aggregate supply, "gatherers." Posted prices generally apply to a crude oil "stream" -- a crude oil or blend of oils of standardized quality (West Texas Intermediate, Louisiana Light Sweet), with quality adjustments where the oil varies from the standard. In decades past, posted prices remained relatively stable even while spot prices fluctuated. Today, they more commonly reflect market conditions quickly. Companies may also add a temporary premium to a posted price ("Posting Plus") to account for transient market conditions.

 

Contracts for products between suppliers and resellers and/or bulk consumers are often priced in a similar way to international crude oil: a base price tied to a market indicator, then adjusted for other factors such as volume, delivery terms, etc. Bulk consumers may also be able to convince their suppliers to provide fixed prices, or may be able to enter into the types of offsetting financial transactions that will have the same effect.

 

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To Gasoline Classes of Trade

 

To Regional Prices Solve an Imbalance