Are low oil prices helping or hurting you?

[reade]

Big oil has nothing to do with it. Low oil prices are LOW OIL PRICES. Are they gigging you when they are cutting back drilling? How in the hell would they be doing that?

They buy the oil and sell the gas both, QT doesn't own a refinery to my knowledge. I'd say the percentage of profit may very well be higher now than when oil was $90.00. In my feeble mind I'd say if oil is half what it was gas should be too. That's how I feel I'm being gigged.

 

[Nraman]

In my feeble mind I'd say if oil is half what it was gas should be too.

That would be true if a barrel of crude produced a gallon of gas.

 

[reade]

There are just as many gallons of gas in a barrel of crude regardless of it's price. I'm talking about percentage of profit and I think it's higher now than when oil was $90.00.

Just looked to see and find,

Refineries in the United States produced an average of about 12 gallons of diesel fuel and 19 gallons of gasoline from one barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil.

If you can sale gas for the same price as when oil was $60.00 a barrel and you are buying that same barrel for $43.00 I think you should be making a higher percentage of profit. Or gouging the consumer. For some reason QT is getting the blame? QT buys the gas from a refinery, the refinery sets the price paid. There is no QT where I live and I'm seeing $2.70+ a gal. My wife used to work for a bulk agent and from what I understood (at the time anyway) the price at the pump was only pennies per gal above cost. Maybe not now, I don't know but I'd assume not much has changed.

 

[Nraman]

There are just as many gallons of gas in a barrel of crude regardless of it's price. I'm talking about percentage of profit and I think it's higher now than when oil was $90.00.

There are several factors involved, a barrel doesn't turn in to gas only, you only get about half if I remember right and then you have refinery costs that are not part of the crude price, transportation to gas stations, local, State, Federal taxes that are the same regardless of oil prices and of course if you have a dominant chain of gas stations, they will have more control of the prices than if you have lots of independents.
Senator Inhofe has accused retailers of manipulating prices, I think one of his complaints was that they raise the prices faster than they lower them compared to the oil prices.

 

[Shadowrider]

reade big oil as a general rule doesn't do fuel. Refiners do that. Big oil just sells the raw material to a world market, the refiners buy it from them. I can assure you that "big oil" is losing their shirts right now. And many won't survive. You need to aim your ire at big .gov, they are a big part of the problem. Refinery problems are what is upping the price of gas. Take .gov out of the equation and you'd never know about any problem that hits them. As it is now, you feel every little glitch in your wallet. Quit eating the tripe the media feeds you.

 

[reade]

My refer to "big oil" as the refinery, I used the wrong terminology. My dad worked for Sun, Sun owns a refinery in Tulsa (or used to), when I think of big oil I think of Sun.

I do 100% agree GOV needs to be reigned in. We are on the same page here although I don't think we are actually that far apart on the rest.

 

[Shadowrider]

What is causing this bump right now is a big refinery up north had a big problem and went offline. Timing is bad because they are all going to be going offline to re formulate off of summer blends very soon. The market plans for that but not the accidents, how could they? Thanks to .gov nobody can afford to build new refineries that would help absorb these issues.

 

[reade]

I'm with you on that. Yes, a refinery is down but that shouldn't effect the prices locally. I can see it effecting the price when trucked across the country.

 

[Nraman]

Take .gov out of the equation and you'd never know about any problem that hits them. As it is now, you feel every little glitch in your wallet. Quit eating the tripe the media feeds you.

If you took .gov out you might have something resembling free enterprise.
We have loads of oil onshore and offshore that .gov doesn't allow us to produce. By restricting production they, along with the rest of OPEC are assuring prices higher than what a free trade/ free enterprise would allow.
For all practical purposes, .gov is an OPEC member that does exactly what OPEC does, using different language, a spotted owl sounds better and is easier to accept than screw the consumer with high prices to benefit Big Oil.

 

[SlugSlinger]

I'm with you on that. Yes, a refinery is down but that shouldn't effect the prices locally. I can see it effecting the price when trucked across the country.

It impacts local prices because the Tulsa refinery (HollyFrontier) will transport gasoline, via pipelines, to the markets with the highest prices. This causes a "shortage" here and raises prices here.