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"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -
Wow, if this is a drillable truth (in time), how much money can we realistically save on gasoline per barrel? Anyone know? -
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because no one is drilling at full capacity as it is.... prices are rising due to demand (i.e. china/india), not supply. Exxon, itself, just stated they had no intention on altering their planned production schedule for the forseeable future.Comment
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Why? It's not their fault... nor is it their responsibility to make sure gas stays "cheap." Oil is still cheap from a fundamental point of view.
You want to place blame, place it on everybody who keeps buying lots of gas and not changing their lifestyle. Bottom line is gas is not "too expensive" until people stop buying as much of it.Comment
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besides, exxon is just a small piece of the puzzle.... much of the world's oil production is not done by privately held firms... rather, nationalized oil companies (in countries such as russia, venezuela, saudi arabia, etc) provide a sizable portion of the world's oil supply.Comment
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I would love to know how anyone could realistically do this?? Are you suggesting I stop commuting to work 70 miles both ways?? Am I to quit my job to stop buying gas?? Or maybe I should car pool seeing that there must be a ton of people I could drop off on my commute down the toll road. I mean it would probably only add another hour or two of driving a day to my already 3 to 3.5 hours of drive time. Of course if we all switched to motorcycles that would be something!! Probably have a lot more job openings by the end of year one on that plan. Maybe I should go buy a 40k+ dollar car and put myself in years of debt to save the extra 1k a year I'm spending now on gas??
I just don't understand this point of view because if people could change their habits now without a financial sting they probably would. Matter of fact if corporate America made any sense at all now they would try and set it up so that their employees didn't have to drive very far but every time there is a job that is a couple of blocks from my house they send me an hour away and send other guys an hour in the other direction. It's a complete joke.
I don't see how doing anything but lowering gas prices helps. If you raise them any more is will eventually just crash the economy.I have 3 rules:
1) Never get less than 12 hours sleep
2) Never play poker against a guy that has the same name as a city.
3) Never date chicks that have tattoos of daggers.Comment
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Well, its going to be a reality at some point... there is a finite amount of oil and demand is not slackening. The price of oil is a free market mechanism... who is this "you" you are talking about who is raising and lowering gas prices? You act as if some small select few are manipulating the price of gas for their own benefit and they can take you back 10 years in time (in terms of price) whenever they want. OPEC and a few others might be able to reasonably control the supply, but who can control the demand? China itself buys something like 30% of the world's oil.... and rising quickly. What is anyone supposed to do about that?
The REALITY is this: The higher the price of oil gets, the more incentive companies have to research/develop new technologies. Right now, there is little incentive because people still buy the gas.... they buy SUVs, live in suburbs and commute 30-40 miles one way, refuse to car pool, etc. Prices will continue to go up because there is a limited supply and seemingly unlimited demand. It's not a man behind the curtain pulling the strings... it's econ 101, and some people argue that oil is fundamentally pretty cheap right now.
By the way... if you could someone lower the price of gas significantly for a good period of time, you would only be delaying the inevitable for a little while... lower gas prices make it worse because it increases demand even more and reduces motivation to innovate alternate energy sources.Comment
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Oil should not be sold as if it were a retail item. Supply and demand might be economics 101 but lets address the actual cost of supplying the world oil first then compare that cost to what is being charged per barrel of oil. Oil is a resource not a product to get rich off of........ yet I here arguments about supply and demand driving the Oil prices higher and higher. What is never addressed is the issue that a barrel of oil makes more than just Gasoline. It makes about 4 different types of fuel, asphalt and 100's of products. These products being sold should help pay for the cost of a barrel of oil.
Well only so much gasoline can be made from each barrel so in a way the argument holds some truths however when you read stuff like this.......
From 2005
When major oil companies report their quarterly profits next week, they're once again expected to post record numbers. With crude trading around $60 a barrel, the oil industry is enjoying one of the biggest windfalls in its history. But as the industry looks for places to put that cash, it's finding it harder and harder to put funds to work finding new deposits of oil and natural gas.ByBy just about any measure, the past three years have produced one of the biggest cash gushers in the oil industry’s history. Since January of 2002, the price of crude has tripled, leaving oil producers awash in profits. During that period, the top 10 major public oil companies have sold some $1.5 trillion worth of crude, pocketing profits of more than $125 billion.
“This is the mother of all booms,” said Oppenheimer & Co. oil analysFadeleGheitit. “They have so much profit, it’s almost an embarrassment of riches. They don’t know what to do with it.
From 2007
Big oil claims it's supply and demand. What they don't tell you is they manipulate the supply and tailor it to the demand. Recently President Bush requested that OPEC increase production to increase supply and drive prices down. Unfortunately, OPEC decided not to increase production stating that with the downturn in the market, the current production rates would meet the demand (and keep the price up).
Many want to drill in Alaska and offshore. But if the oil companies are going to limit supply and charge us the same for domestic oil as for foreign oil, how will the public benefit?
The fourth quarter of 2007 showed a decline in the consumption of gasoline by 0.4 percent. The first quarter of '08 was down by 0.6 percent. The next six months' projections show a decline of 0.4 percent. With supply and demand you would expect with those circumstances that prices would also decline, but that isn't so. Despite the decline in consumption, retail prices are up 32 percent over last year with projections of even higher prices on the horizon.
That demonstrates how meaningless supply and demand have become. Manipulation is the key. Some say that the major oil companies have an obligation to their stockholders. Well, they figured out a way to get around that too. In 2007, Exxon-Mobil spent $31.8 billion dollars buying back 386 million shares of their own stock.
A recent Associated Press story stated retailers are being squeezed by low profit margins on gasoline sales. The fact is that retailers on an average day since Hurricane Katrina are making far more on their profit margins than before. What's being squeezed is their newly gained profit shares.
Oil is a resource that every human on the planet should be entitled too. It's like water or air. The cost for drilling, shipping and refining should be covered and perhaps some profits for the companies but when those profits are doing nothing but squeezing the entire world.... the industry should be told they are out of line. Of course the wealthy that have huge amounts of money invested in Oil are going to bring the supply and demand argument because they could care less what gas costs if it's reaping a fortune for them. It's not like they are going to run out of money. I don't see how this is not a clear case of controlling the market which should never happen.
The REALITY is this: The higher the price of oil gets, the more incentive companies have to research/develop new technologies. Right now, there is little incentive because people still buy the gas.... they buy SUVs, live in suburbs and commute 30-40 miles one way, refuse to car pool, etc. Prices will continue to go up because there is a limited supply and seemingly unlimited demand. It's not a man behind the curtain pulling the strings... it's econ 101, and some people argue that oil is fundamentally pretty cheap right now.
The real reality is most business does not deal in supplying energy, they buy it and those companies would never invest in finding alternate power, they would simply go broke. They would no longer be able to supply the services or goods they do deal in. I mean doesn't this strike a chord in the common sense category??I have 3 rules:
1) Never get less than 12 hours sleep
2) Never play poker against a guy that has the same name as a city.
3) Never date chicks that have tattoos of daggers.Comment
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Once again you are losing sight of the fact that the much of the oil production is not controlled by "industry" but by nations... GL telling Russia to stop manipulating the price of oil... or Venezuala (who just kicked Exxon out).
People can cry manipulation all they want... bottom line... compare a chart of the price of oil over the past 10 years with a chart of the economic output from China... eerily similar.Comment
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Another factor to consider is this: if this is manipulation by Oil "entities" then how do you explain the fact that the boom in oil has also been accompanied by booms in almost every other commodity? Coal, Ore, and agricultural products have all been going nutso for several years now (not to mention gold).... pretty much in tandem with oil. WHY?Comment
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