Gasoline is more than just crude oil.
Posted on 02/12/2009 8:59:45 AM PST by EagleUSA
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Oil prices slid closer to a new multiyear low Thursday because of growing doubts that the $789 billion stimulus package will reinvigorate the economy and demand for energy.
Retail gas prices, meanwhile, reached a new high for 2009 on Thursday and appeared headed back to $2 a gallon as refiners cut back on production.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery fell $1.04 to $34.90 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.61 overnight to settle at $35.94 after a government report on Wednesday showed that crude inventories jumped much more than expected.
There were also more signs of economic weakness.
The number of people requesting first-time unemployment benefits dropped slightly last week, but remained near a 26-year high as companies lay off thousands of workers amid a deepening recession. The Commerce Department said the number of initial jobless benefit claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 623,000, from an upwardly revised figure of 631,000 the previous week.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Refineries claim when gas was expensive, they didn’t make money. You know, the gas station owner / pauper argument where they basically claim to make a penny on every 20,000 gallons, as if they are selling gas at a loss as a public service. So now they can finally make money, so we shouldn’t mind that refineries are working together to bottleneck supply. Or so the argument goes.
Bar-har-har-har-har-har-har!
June is only four months away. And thanks to the vastly superior insight of Øbama Hussein The Magnificent's "stimulus" to the economy their stored $43 brl crude might bring a shattering price of... $40.00.
Gasoline is more than just crude oil.
Hugo still has a lot of money left over from last year’s criminally high oil prices but he is now burning through it like a drunken sailor. Of all the oil exporting countries, Venezuela has probably been hurt the most because basically its entire economy runs on oil revenues and since last year that revenue has been cut by 75%.
So much for the free market theory....
1) Storage at Cushing, OK, which is the delivery point for WTI, is upwards of 33 MM bbls. The industry only needs 19-20 MM bbls, so there's relative oversupply, thus depressing WTI price more than other grades (and also creating/maintaining the huge month/month contango).
2) Brent supplies are growing tighter over time, and will continue to do so as the North Sea fields become more and more exhausted. This mitigates the general downtrend in crude prices with regard to Brent, making it relatively stronger (or relatively less weak, if you like).
Nymex Crude Future. WTI would be second. Dated Brent Spot is kinda useless now, for we here in the u.S. It’s just to far away from our situation.
I've pinged our resident FR oil expert on this, but I'll try to answer it myself . . .
I believe gasoline prices have risen in February because the spot price of oil for February delivery actually rose while the price for future contracts has been falling recently.
I am beginning to get it. Looks like we will have far different prices all over the country due to local input tax wise, federal and excise taxes.
Slide, hell....the gas prices here continue to rise.
I am surpsrised there are no new finds for Brent oil.
Always remember that the OPEC basket is comprised **mostly** of sour crudes, and thus will be lower than WTI in virtually all mkt situations.
of course they do now that they have seen what you will pay for gas to provide a living for your family....
Brazil's ocean find, by comparison, is much more easily accessible. Be interesting to see how quickly they start producing, and how much. The potential is gigantic.
Yes, your logic. The price of gasoline includes many more variables than just the cost of oil. On top of that, there are usual fluctuations when it comes to winter/spring transition because of home heating oil and gasoline production/storage capacities, as well as outages for turnarounds. On top of that, we import the end product of gasoline, which also has a supply/demand influence. In summary, its not as simple as $70/$2 per gal = $35/$1 per gal
I thought we didn’t have enough refineries?
NYMEX Crude is WTI.
Does the spending bill include an increase in the gas tax?
If you look at NYMEX the asking price on RBOB (which is a blend stock of gasoline) is around $1.28. When oil was around $35 bbl a couple months ago the RBOB asking price was about $.98. When you see this happening the only thing it can mean is that gasoline production is down. That means the refineries are no longer cranking at full capacity 24/7.
This also means that the refining system has the capacity to absorb some of the current fluctuation in the oil market without raising gasoline prices any further. Whether they do that or not is another question.
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