OK I was wrong. I admit it so there. But I have to admit that I never thought the huge Oil Companies nor the Oil Producers nor the Huge Refiners would ever admit that there is absolutely no relationship between supply and demand either in the price of a barrel of oil, or in the price of gasoline, much less admit that there is no relationship BETWEEN THE TWO of them. But they did. So When I said that Oil would hit 120 or 130 $$$ per barrel next summer my thoughts were mainly on gasoline. Yet in a world finally gone honest for reasons I do not understand…I must change my prediction about Oil and change it to Gasoline. Who knows what the price of Oil will be next Summer but I predict the Price of Gasoline will be over 3$$ a gallon, and easily could be around 4 $$$ a gallon. Boy would I love to be wrong. We should Tax Gasoline out of existence,
But enough about me:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29210445/
First heard here:
http://www.peakoil.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=46258
Crude oil is getting cheaper — so why isn’t gas?
Energy market has turned upside-down amid U.S. recession
updated 4:50 p.m. CT, Sun., Feb. 15, 2009
NEW YORK – Crude oil prices have fallen to new lows for this year. So you’d think gas prices would sink right along with them.
Not so.
On Thursday, for example, crude oil closed just under $34 a barrel, its lowest point for 2009. But the national average price of a gallon of gas rose to $1.95 on the same day, its peak for the year. On Friday gas went a penny higher.
To drivers once again grimacing as they tank up, it sounds like a conspiracy. But it has more to do with an energy market turned upside-down that has left gas cut off from its usual economic moorings.
The price of gas is indeed tied to oil. It’s just a matter of which oil.
The benchmark for crude oil prices is West Texas Intermediate, drilled exactly where you would imagine. That’s the price, set at the New York Mercantile Exchange, that you see quoted on business channels and in the morning paper.
Right now, in an unusual market trend, West Texas crude is selling for much less than inferior grades of crude from other places around the world. A severe economic downturn has left U.S. storage facilities brimming with it, sending prices for the premium crude to five-year lows.
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Please read the entire article it is full of great information. If you ignore the idiocy above about “it depends on which oil you buy”, the fact is that oil storage is nearing its capacity because everyone is “saving” their oil “til the markets rise”. Yet at the same time there is this huge glut of oil, there is near scarcity and rising prices in gasoline. That is because the Refiners are not buying oil and restricting gasoline supplies to increase price. You then see the real wizard in the machine, or the magician behind the curtains, because as gas prices rise consumption already at market lows will fall further. The point: They can not raise gasoline prices fast enough to make money while they are concurrently scaring the bejeezes out of gasoline, diesel and kerasene (manly airlines and the airforce) users. Then there is the question of what to do with all that stored oil. More on that later! This in from Texas where they love their oil (that’s earl to you):
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2009/02/09/daily38.html
Friday, February 13, 2009
Gas prices rising throughout Texas
San Antonio Business Journal
The nation’s refiners are cutting back on the supply of gasoline in the market, leading to a steady increase in gasoline prices throughout the country, according to AAA Texas.
Retail prices nationwide are inching back toward the $2 mark. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is now at $1.95.
In Texas, the average price of gas is currently $1.83 a gallon, an increase of nearly three cents over a week ago.
In San Antonio, average gas prices are also up three cents this week, to $1.80 a gallon.
“The higher gas prices come at a time when crude oil prices remain very sluggish and the Department of Energy and experts say supplies are abundant,” AAA Texas spokesman Dan Ronan says.
“Oil today has been trading on the NYMEX exchange around $35 a barrel, clearly in the lower range of the $30 to $50 pattern it’s been in for the past several weeks,” he says.
What’s driving higher retail gasoline prices are the reductions in capacity many refiners are taking to address a slow-down in demand for gasoline and the recession, Ronan says.
Americans currently are spending $671 million a day on gasoline. This is down from $1.12 billion spent daily on gasoline during January 2008.
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What set all this market transparency off (hahaha I never thought I would say that about an energy market) you might wonder? Well it has to be the speculators. I have always wondered about this concept “the smartest guys in the room”. Echoed in the earlier movie, Wall Street, where Gecko says “Greed is Good”. Thieves are not very smart. Think about it. How smart do you have to be to take money from the weak and the helpless. I first heard this phrase applied to the “people” at Enron. But their business was just fraud…plain and simple. They did not make any money they just took other people’s money. Even the Rich are starting to notice and they hardly ever do that:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gas-week-cents-2303144-county-prices
Monday, February 9, 2009
Slowly rising gasoline prices? Forget it
Prices at the pump not finished increasing.
The Orange County Register
Comments 6 | Recommend 1
Orange County gas prices have jumped 10 cents in the past week, a reversal of the trend of slower, more gradual increases.
A gallon of regular unleaded goes for $2.17, up 10 cents since last week, and 27 cents higher than a month ago. Last week and the week previous, prices seemed to be leveling off at $2.07, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California and the Oil Price Information Service.
Prices are still 83 cents less than a year ago, and $2.43 cheaper than the June 19 record of $4.60.
In Los Angeles County, gas goes for $2.18, the Auto Club says.
Orangecountygasprices.com says that the cheapest gas in Orange County can be found for $1.98 at the 76 station at 1201 S. State College Blvd at Ball Road in Anaheim. The most expensive gas is at the Chevron at 26988 Ortega Highway at Del Obispo Street in San Juan Capistrano.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3795 or sdaniels@ocregister.com
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The smartest guys in the room got the ball rolling by creating the housing bubble. But when the big money pulled out of the market well before the crash it had to have “somewhere to go”. So the rocket scientists suggested commodities, in particular Oil. That destabilized what had been an incredibly stable market and the chicanery caused the weak regulatory system to collapse. The see-saws whipped the market and exposed the LIE that was the market justification. What are they going to do with all that oil? Pump it back into the ground, but more likely abandon it. Think about that?>! Yet some people want to live in the nicer world of the 1990s
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However, he said he would not speculate about the future prices of oil because it could turn into a “guessing game.”
Regular grade unleaded fuel in Amarillo sold for an average of $2.967 per gallon a year ago, according to AAA’s Web site. The same grade of gas was sold Thursday for $1.683 per gallon.
Peter Summers, an assistant professor in the Economics and Geography department, said he thinks most people are taking the increases “in stride.”
“As expensive as oil and gas got last summer, and to see such a huge reversal of that,” Summers said, “not many people were expecting it and maybe people got used to it.”
The increases could be affecting construction around campus, he said, because the increasing prices of petroleum could raise the price of asphalt.
Bolton said he does not feel like lower prices would be a long-term trend, but if prices could stabilize between $2 to $2.50 per gallon, people could afford gas and companies could still profit off gas sales.
The average price for regular grade unleaded fuel was $1.614 in the Austin-San Marcos area and $1.625 in the Dallas area. The national average for regular grade unleaded fuel was $1.762.
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