Gas Price Hits Record $1.941/Gallon

[ELVIS]

May 10, 2004


http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040511/capt.cajme10205111903.gas_prices_cajme102.jpg

By Christopher Doering (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&u=/nm/20040510/ts_nm/energy_gasoline_dc_5&printer=1)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumers will pay even more to fill up their automobiles as the average national price for a gallon of gasoline rose nearly 10 cents during the past week to a record high of $1.941 per gallon, the U.S. government said on Monday.



Pump prices are up 45 cents from one year ago, according to a weekly survey of more than 800 service stations by the Energy Information Administration.


Fuel prices have climbed in recent months because of strong demand for gasoline, tight petroleum supplies and high crude oil costs.


"It's not unexpected that we've seen prices increase this week," said Jonathan Cogan, a spokesman for the EIA. "And we don't expect this is the end."


When adjusted for inflation in 2004 dollars, the highest U.S. average retail gasoline price was $2.99 a gallon in March 1981, the EIA said.


On Monday, the Bush administration said it welcomed a proposal by Saudi Arabia for OPEC (news - web sites) to boost its crude oil production by about 6 percent, or 1.5 million barrels per day. Kuwait, another member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said it supported such a move.


"We welcome the actions of all producer nations to help both the U.S. and the global economy," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy, when asked to comment on the Saudi announcement.


The administration has expressed concern over the impact of high fuel prices in the United States, which consumes about 45 percent of the world's gasoline. President Bush (news - web sites) recently urged OPEC to boost production when it holds its next official meeting in June.


U.S. crude oil futures for June delivery tumbled by $1 to $38.93 per barrel on the Saudi announcement. Last week, U.S. crude oil briefly hit $40 a barrel for the first time since 1990 on concerns over security in the Middle East and tight U.S. gasoline supplies.


The EIA's weekly gasoline report showed the average U.S. pump price was the highest on the West Coast, where prices rose 11.7 cents to an average of $2.220 per gallon.


The U.S. Gulf Coast had the cheapest gasoline last week, rising 9.0 cents to $1.818 a gallon.


Among the 10 major urban areas highlighted by the EIA, Houston pump prices were the cheapest at $1.783 per gallon, up 9.7 cents. San Francisco was the most expensive city as prices rose 11.1 cents to $2.237 per gallon.


The national price for cleaner-burning reformulated gasoline, sold at about one-third of the gas stations in cities and smoggier areas, rose 10.4 cents to $2.017 a gallon.


U.S. diesel prices rose 2.8 cents to an average $1.745 per gallon last week, the EIA said. The average cost for a gallon of diesel is 30.1 cents per gallon more expensive than one year ago.





:elvis:

[Igosplut]

Its been two bucks for preminum here for a while...

[ashstralia]

i wish!
here in oz it's $1 a litre.
more than $4 a gallon,
and that's aus $
thank god i've only got a little v8.

[FORD]

http://www.komotv.com/stories/31192.htm

Ken Schram Commentary: It's Simple Oil-Company Greed

May 11, 2004

By Ken Schram

SEATTLE - I don't care what the oil analysts say.

I care less about what they pay for gas over in Europe, or how many SUVs are on the road.

I have a simple answer to the complicated question of why gas prices are so high: oil company greed.

It's NOT about prices adjusted for inflation; NOT about what OPEC is charging for a barrel of crude.

It's about a monopolistic cartel of U.S. oil companies that control much of the production, and virtually all of the refining, distribution and marketing or petroleum products.

With oil industry mergers over the past decade, it's been much easier to control prices at the pump.

And by control, I mean increase; increase to the point where oil company profits are in the stratosphere.

We're being had and we need to do something.

We've talked about boycotts.

That didn't work.

We've talked about only buying gas on certain days of the week.

That didn't work.

What will work?

Government regulation?

Richard Nixon-style price controls?

Should Congress intervene?

You tell me and we'll go from there.

Either that or we just sit back, shut up and continue being screwed.

[High Life Man]

Yeah, big oil is greedy. That sucks. Majorly.

I bet they have all time record profits this year.

This pisses me off, but who am I to complain, I still drive everyday. I could ride my bike or take a bus, but I don't.

At least they could use some of that oil to lube up before they fistfuck us.

[DLR'sCock]

This is a combination of OPEC Oil prices and the American Oil companies that distribute the gas...


Fucking bullshit...

Even though Opec said they are going to try and increase production now, they were saying the prices may not go down anyway...

BULLSHIT....

[ELVIS]

I love my Dodge Neon...;)

[Angel]

We're paying the equivalent of 3.35/gallon here. Drives me nuts when I look at the "refinery row" across the river from my home. We produce the shit, and STILL have to pay! The Province though is making oodles on crude, maybe they sould consider sharing it with some of their taxpayers!

[ashstralia]

and you know, if we suddenly had water powered cars,
our fearless leaders would tax the shit outta water.

[Dan]

We are paying NZ$1.25 a litre for 96 not very good if you have a 2 litre V6 car.Our leaders in the Beehive are sitting back and willn't do anything about it.Out the tax you F@#ker.

[ELVIS]

What ???

[lucky wilbury]

gas prices are higher because of the taxes. between 40 and 60 percent of the cost is taxes! depending on where you live of course

[FORD]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
gas prices are higher because of the taxes. between 40 and 60 percent of the cost is taxes! depending on where you live of course

Nope. Gas taxes in this state have increased by a nickel since the BCE took over. That's not even a fraction of the total inccrease.

Meanwhile, oil corporations report record profits in 2002 and 2003 because they are increasing the retail price while the price of crude has remained stable. Or in other words, they're price fixing.

[lucky wilbury]

the price of crude has gone up. it hit 40 bucks a barrel this week. with the taxes thing take off the 40-60% in taxes and you get the real price of your gas. so if you paying 2 bucks a gallon with 60% in taxes that $1.20 in taxes. you gas costs 80 cents that 80 cents will go up and down over time but the taxes are what make it super high.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1519&u=/afp/20040511/bs_afp/oil_price_close_040511193016&printer=1

Crude oil closes above 40 dollars in New York

Tue May 11, 3:30 PM ET Add Business - AFP to My Yahoo!



NEW YORK (AFP) - Crude oil closed above 40 dollars a barrel in New York for the first time since October 1990, at 40.06 dollars for the June futures contract, traders said.

On Friday, the benchmark light, sweet crude futures price briefly hit 40 dollars a barrel before settling back to close at 39.93 dollars. And the price fell 1.00 Monday to 38.93 dollars a barrel.

But prices began the rally in European trade early Tuesday as the markets dismissed calls by Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter, for a boost to OPEC (news - web sites)'s output quotas, analysts said.

Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi on Monday called for an increase in OPEC's production quota of not less than 1.5 million barrels per day -- comments which initially forced prices down.

Fahnestock and Company oil analyst Fadel Gheit said "basically the market has ignored the comments from Saudi Arabia."

Gheit added that there was a "tight supply" and strong demand, especially for gasoline from China, Japan, Europe, United States.

Fimat USA analyst Mike Fitzpatrick said the Saudi promise is empty because the kingdom is already exceeding its quota by that amount.

"People look at the Saudi promise for OPEC to put out 1.5 million (additional) barrels per day, and that is exactly the amount that they are cheating by," said Fitzpatrick.

"We are where we were last Friday."

Bill O'Grady at AG Edwards said the reasons for the spike are mainly psychological, adding, "there is plenty of supply."

"The market is not looking at inventories ... more at a future disruption in supply. The trick is we are at a point that the market feels that there are no fundamentals out there that can bring prices down."

Earlier, the price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for June delivery rose 38 cents to 36.35 dollars.

World oil prices have been soaring on fears of terrorist strikes on oil facilities in the Middle East and concerns over tight stocks of US gasoline.

Worries about the threat of fresh terrorist attacks have arisen after gunmen attacked a Saudi oil facility at Yanbu port on May 1, killing five staff of the Swiss engineering group ABB and a Saudi national guard.

There are also jitters among traders about low inventories of US gasoline, or petrol, heading into the so-called "summer driving season" in the United States when motorists flock to the roads for their holidays.

The latest weekly US stock figures were to be published on Wednesday.

[lucky wilbury]

http://money.howstuffworks.com/gas-price2.htm

How Gas Prices Work

by Kevin Bonsor



Where Your Money Goes

When you pump $20 dollars into your tank, that money is broken up into little pieces that get distributed among several entities. Gas is just like any other consumer product: There's a supply chain and several groups who are responsible for setting the price of the product. The media can sometimes lead you to believe that the price of gas is based solely on the price of crude oil, but there are actually many factors that determine what you pay at the pump. No matter how expensive gas becomes, all of these entities have to get their slice of the pie.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/gas-price-breakdown.gif
Source: U.S. Department of Energy


Let's look at where your money goes when you pay for gas:

Crude oil - The biggest portion of the cost of gas -- about 43 percent -- goes to the crude-oil suppliers. This is determined by the world's oil-exporting nations, particularly the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which you will learn more about in the next section. The amount of crude oil these countries produce determines the price of a barrel of oil. Crude-oil prices rose to as high as $37 per barrel (1 barrel = 42 gallons or 159.6 L) in 2000, and averaged $24.09 per barrel in 2002 (Source: U.S. DOE).

Refining costs - The refining of crude oil makes up about 13 percent of the price of gasoline. To learn more about oil refining, read How Oil Refining Works.

Distribution and marketing - Crude oil is transported to refineries, and gasoline is shipped from the refineries to distribution points and then to gas stations. The price of transportation is passed along to the consumer. Marketing the brand of the oil company is also added into the cost of the gasoline you buy. Together, these two factors account for about 13 percent of the price of gasoline.

Taxes - Taxes, including federal and local, account for about 31 percent of the total price of gas in the United States. Federal excise taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon, and state excise taxes average 19.96 cents per gallon. There may also be some additional state sales taxes, as well as local and city taxes. In Europe, gas prices are far higher than in America because taxes on gas are much higher. For example, a gallon of gas in England cost $4.71 in September 2000, with $3.40 going to taxes.

Station markup - In order to stay in business, service stations have to add on a few more cents to make a profit. There's no set standard for how much gas stations add on to the price. Some may add just a couple of cents, while others may add as much as a dime or more. However, some states have markup laws prohibiting stations from charging less than a certain percentage over invoice from the wholesaler. These laws are designed to protect small, individually-owned gas stations from being driven out of business by large chains who can afford to slash prices at select locations.

Gas prices also vary from state to state for several reasons. Taxes are probably the biggest factor in the different prices around the country. Additionally, competition among local gas stations can drive prices down. Distance from the oil refineries can also affect prices -- stations closer to the Gulf of Mexico, where many oil refineries are located, have lower gas prices due to lower transportation costs. There are also some regional factors that can affect prices.

Regional Differences
In some regions of the country, gasoline is required to meet higher environmental standards in order to reduce the amount of smog created by burning gasoline. Producing this cleaner-burning gasoline can cause problems in refining, distribution and storage, which increases the cost of gas. "The result of this targeted approach to air quality has been to create gasoline market islands," John Cook, director of the petroleum division of the DOE's Energy Information Administration, said before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 15, 2001.

Cook pointed at California and the Chicago and Milwaukee areas as primary examples of gasoline-market islands. The clean-burning requirements in each of these areas are unique to that individual area, and only a few refineries can produce the specialized products. High demand, a supply problem at a refinery or a problem with a pipeline can cause pricing in these areas to surge.

In California, the state government has set its own reformulated gasoline rules that are stricter than the federally mandated clean-gas laws. This is why Californians pay a higher price for cleaner fuels -- this, plus a local sales-and-use tax of 7.25 percent, an 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal excise tax and an 18-cent-per-gallon state excise tax. California's distance from the refineries located near the Gulf of Mexico can also add to the cost of gasoline if it chooses to obtain gas supplies from those refineries.

The other area where prices can far exceed the U.S. national average is the Midwest. In 1999, the Midwest region became subject to new reformulated gasoline rules. The Midwest uses a special gasoline that is produced using ethanol instead of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). Ethanol is used in the Midwest because of the region's abundance of corn, which is the main raw material used to make ethanol. Few refineries outside the region produce this type of reformulated gasoline, which means there may often be a limited supply of the product.

[keith2]

We are getting screwed for $6 a gallon in the UK.

[knuckleboner]

i can't complain to the foreign guys out there, but here in America, my car's tuned for 91 octane...only they don't sell 91, they sell 93. and currently, that's $2.29/gallon out here.

of course, since the other gases move up the same total cents, the relative gap between 87 and 93 is actually decreasing.

so...in that way, the more expensive gas gets, the better deal i'm getting!!

what the hell, let's get $8.00/gallon!!! :D

[diamond den™]

Gas is $2.13 a gallon where I am now.

[ALinChainz]

Originally posted by diamond den™
Gas is $2.13 a gallon where I am now.

$2.08 and up here in Michigan.

[Ally_Kat]

$3 here in Queens.

[worldbefree]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
gas prices are higher because of the taxes. between 40 and 60 percent of the cost is taxes! depending on where you live of course

Thank god for the Bush tax cut. It helped offset the increase in gasoline tax I'm not paying. To bad the additional funds from the tax cut were depleted after a couple of fill ups.

[FORD]

Originally posted by knuckleboner
i can't complain to the foreign guys out there, but here in America, my car's tuned for 91 octane...only they don't sell 91, they sell 93. and currently, that's $2.29/gallon out here.

of course, since the other gases move up the same total cents, the relative gap between 87 and 93 is actually decreasing.

so...in that way, the more expensive gas gets, the better deal i'm getting!!

what the hell, let's get $8.00/gallon!!! :D

You got 93 octane over there? No fair! :(

I got spoiled up in BC last summer where they have 94 octane all over the place. Yeah, it cost me about $70 (CDN) to fill the tank, but it was worth it, especially on the long hills. It really sucked when I got back over the border and had to go back to 87 octane regular. Or actually, I think I went with the 89 "plus" for a while so I could gradually adjust.

(Premium here is 91 octane. Could be worse though. Some states have 85 as regular, and they're the ones that border the Rockies for fucks sake!!)

[worldbefree]

Originally posted by FORD
You got 93 octane over there? No fair! :(

I got spoiled up in BC last summer where they have 94 octane all over the place. Yeah, it cost me about $70 (CDN) to fill the tank, but it was worth it, especially on the long hills. It really sucked when I got back over the border and had to go back to 87 octane regular. Or actually, I think I went with the 89 "plus" for a while so I could gradually adjust.

(Premium here is 91 octane. Could be worse though. Some states have 85 as regular, and they're the ones that border the Rockies for fucks sake!!)

There's a station near me that sells 106, now that's sweet smelling. Regular Super is 93, I think Sunoco has 94. All you care really needs is 87 to run efficiently. Anything more is a waste of money, unless it's a high compression motor.

[FORD]

I only do premium on road trips because it burns more efficiently at the higher speeds. I usually stick with the low or medium grades (or even mix the two) for normal everyday driving. (And for me, "everyday driving" means the weekend. I live about a mile from the job and rarely drive Monday - Friday)

106 octane?? Where the Hell can I get that??

[Snow Ho]

i have a question- can anyone confirm for me that there really is a difference? i've only seen like one tank and one hose-so how do they get three different octanes?

[FORD]

Originally posted by Snow Ho
i have a question- can anyone confirm for me that there really is a difference? i've only seen like one tank and one hose-so how do they get three different octanes?

The gas is actually in underground storage tanks which would be several feet away from the pumps. This is for safety reasons as well as convenience, as every gas pump has an emergency shutoff, so if there's a fire at the pumps (or a hose gets ripped off the pump because some idiot forgot to take it out of his gas tank before he drove away) the damage can be contained.

So inside the "gas pump" that you see are three different actual pumps and you select one of them for operation when you push the buttons that say "87" "89" "91" or whatever they are in your area.

If you still doubt there's a difference, try driving over the mountains or long hills with the lowest octane available. Then try the same drive with the highest. If you don't notice a difference then your gas station IS ripping you off. In which case I would reccommend you stop using that watered down ARCO shit.

[John Ashcroft]

Now's the time to buy an SUV folks. With the gas prices as they are, the lots here in Oklahoma are full of them at bottom dollar! The dealers here are having a bit of trouble getting rid of 'em. I'm thinking about upgrading to a newer Grand Cherokee myself right now.

Hell, if they could only stick one of those V-10s in them...

[worldbefree]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
Now's the time to buy an SUV folks. With the gas prices as they are, the lots here in Oklahoma are full of them at bottom dollar! The dealers here are having a bit of trouble getting rid of 'em. I'm thinking about upgrading to a newer Grand Cherokee myself right now.

Hell, if they could only stick one of those V-10s in them...

Yeah but you'd have to go to Oklahoma. I'd rather walk to work.

[worldbefree]

Originally posted by FORD
I only do premium on road trips because it burns more efficiently at the higher speeds. I usually stick with the low or medium grades (or even mix the two) for normal everyday driving. (And for me, "everyday driving" means the weekend. I live about a mile from the job and rarely drive Monday - Friday)

106 octane?? Where the Hell can I get that??

One of the gas stations here sells CAM2 racing gas. I haven't had my other car out in years so I can't imagine what it cost now. A few years back it was $4 a gallon. Cost 50-60 bucks to fill up the tank but the car ran like a bat out of hell.

[John Ashcroft]

Originally posted by worldbefree
Yeah but you'd have to go to Oklahoma. I'd rather walk to work.

:D

Gotta give you that one.

[Ally_Kat]

If I ever went to Oklahoma, I'd have to sing the song...

[John Ashcroft]

Oh I'd have you singing alright...

[Ally_Kat]

the wind will come sweepin' down the plains, eh? :D

[FORD]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
Now's the time to buy an SUV folks. With the gas prices as they are, the lots here in Oklahoma are full of them at bottom dollar! The dealers here are having a bit of trouble getting rid of 'em. I'm thinking about upgrading to a newer Grand Cherokee myself right now.

Hell, if they could only stick one of those V-10s in them...

What good would it do to get a good deal on a vehicle that you couldn't afford to drive? :confused:

Besides, isn't gas cheaper in Oklahoma? It's an oil state, isn't it? Not to mention a Republican state. (there's a reason the higher gas prices are in the "blue" states and it don't have a goddamned thing to do with supply and demand.)

[lucky wilbury]

the answer is simple: most "red" states have less regulation on gas not to mention lower gas taxes. cali and most of the west coast have a blend of gas that isn't used anywhere else and is more expensive to produce. they can't take gas from s outh carolina to teh west coast because it doesn't have all the wierd additives that are required out there. less availble gas=higher prices

[lucky wilbury]

bump

[lucky wilbury]

as crude oil goes up and demand goes up so do prices as well as the switch to cleaner gases in the summer. add these increases to, which are small 20cents or so, to what you were already paying and you get what you are paying now. your base cost for gas is alrady high in some states in the west for their blend of gas and their high taxes. in the south gas is cheaper to start off with because of their cheaper grades of gas AND lower taxes. a 20 cent increase on a $1.30 a gallon isn't much but when you already paying 1.60 or 1.70 becuase of the grade of gas and taxes the increase seems much bigger