Nightrider, you know as well as I do, that oil prices in the Northeast rise in the winter. Heating oil is at an all time high. Despite the fact that most of the oil is bought by the large companies in advance of the season, yet charge the higher amount. Refining costs are not an equation as it is more costly to produce and refine gasoline with the required additives, than it is to produce and refine home heating oil and deisel fuel. Yet, again, deisel is steadily increasing in price. It used to be that deisel was much lower than gasoline and home heating oil.
The only thing that I can find that would account for that spike in cost is greed. Our Nation depends on deisel to run trucks and locomotives, busses and other forms of transportation. All of which drive up the prices of goods throughout Our Country and the world, for that matter. In the meantime, large corporations of investment brokers are/have filed for bankruptcy and their executives leave with millions of dollars, more than any one person could possibly be worth and more than can be spent in 10 lifetimes. Golden parachutes, they call them, I just call them a bunch of crooks.
Rick

 

As I stated previously, they don't just flip a switch to turn the refineries back on. If refrineries that supply 20% of the US gas are shut down for a week, the supply of gas is going to be less. When the gas stations fill their tanks again, they are going to be paying a higher price for it. Therefore, they have to raise their prices to the consumer.

Do you know that some of the refineries in LA are still not back online 100% from Katrina?

 

Ladies and Gentlemen!!!

We can solve this for about...42cent's!!! Get all the oil ex's in one room, demand that they lower gas to $1.50 a gallon... and then... they laugh...shoot one of the ex's and again state that if this doen't happen the next in line would get the same treatment, that way we show no favoritism to any one oil company... JK!!!!

Gas is rediculous...and it's a scam!!!

 

This would be ok if the price wasn't already inflated by the gas company. Oil is down lower than it has been in years. Last time the price was this low gas was under 2 bucks. Why does it jump 10 cents a day and drop 1 cent a month?

 

My biggest beef with the locals is that when they get a whiff of prices rising, they change the price to reflect that. They have already paid the lower price for the fuel they have in the tanks. That's the main problem, it goes even further when they get a lower priced product, they still charge the higher price.
Who'se making the money then. There should be a cap on when they can charge the higher price and it should be watched carefully. Each state has it's own dept of weights and measures, let them be the watchdogs, give them some bite too. There are all kinds of laws being broken but nobody pays attention. That's just my take on the situation. Our Country also got all of the Oil companies in the middle east up and running with technology, then they threw us out. Why not take all our stuff and go home with it? Shut them down until they can figure out how to do it on thier own?
Make them pay, like they do to us. In Saudi Arabia, it only costs 6 cents a gal. We have done the same with Iraq, gotten thier oil fields up and running to the tune of billions of dollars. Let them pay for our help now that they can afford it. Simple economics, if you can afford it, pay!!!!

 

It's not quite that cut & dried though Crossfire. What's already in the tank doesn't really matter - if the station owner has paid more than the going price he's losing money everytime someone buys gas until it's refilled again. How your local station raises or lowers prices is a reflection of what the wholesaler (that being the guy who owns the tank farms & acts as the distributor) is charging & personally that where I think the gouging is taking place.
It was no different up here in the boonies: the day after Ike hit the coast our premium prices here in town went up $.40. There was/is no reason whatsoever for that to happen. There was no way of knowing, at the time, what the damage to the refineries was going to be, if any. Now if the prices were going up a week or 2 afterwards, that I'd understand.
BTW, the firm I work for owns 21 C-stores throughout central & N.E. Wisc. & I can guarantee you that we are NOT making money during this last pricing spree. Everytime the price of gas goes up our margins go down; in fact, we make money when the prices begin to drop because that's when we can keep our margins a wee bit higher. We'll be lucky to be making a half cent per gallon with this latest round of B.S.

 

I agree with sarge...vbut with each exec shot the price drops anther dime. Gas is 90/barrel 42 gallons per barrell refining & transport costs .40 taxes vary lets say average .70

refining and trans + tax+ 90/42= $3.25 dealer mark up 3.40. Some areas are $4-5 today. Don't give me this crap about start up. I realize it is more than throwing a switch and presures etc have to be done in certain ways. I doubt it would take that long if gas was $5/gal...keep the supply low as long as possible $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for exxon

Can you tell me why 91 octane sells for 25 cents more at some stations and 40-50 more at others?