Posted on 04/05/2011 9:39:40 AM PDT by Nachum
U.S. gasoline prices soared nearly 9 cents over the last week to $3.68 a gallon, the highest pump price on record for April, the Energy Department said on Monday.The national price for regular unleaded gasoline is up 86 cents from a year ago, based on the department’s weekly survey of fuel prices at service stations. Cleveland and Chicago had the biggest weekly gasoline price increases, rising 19 and 18 cents a gallon, respectively.Drivers paid more for gasoline as rising crude oil costs were passed along at the pump.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobreakingbusiness.com ...
It's gonna get worse,isn't it?
I drove past a station at 11:30 last night. I drove past the same station 2hrs later and regular went up 8 cents a gallon.
Democrats straving Seniors.
I mean that all operable drilling rigs are running and new ones are being built and will come on line this summer.
Lease transactions are headed for record territory.
I can’t stand Obama, but please relate your thoughts on what you think he has done that helped increase oil prices NOW.
Keep in mind that exploratory drilling, like in the Gulf of Mexico, is NOT production, does not add to oil supplies and does not affect oil futures markets UNTIL after drilling achieves production and a well’s capacity has a predictable affect on supply. That may affect tomorrow’s oil prices, not today’s.
Everything I have seen has oil prices today being set by three factors: (1)massive increase in world demand as massive numbers of new automobiles - in Asia - enter the demand side; (2)the Bernanke cheap-dollar-driven world-commodity-price-inflation bubble; (3)institutional investors and hedge funds placing bets - buying oil future’s contracts at higher prices - that the first two factors will continue in the long run and Middle East unrest will continue in the short run. I don’t think any of those three factors are greatly controlled by any POTUS.
“This could change if a coming Republican controlled Sentate and Republican president allow widespread drilling but I don’t have any faith in them to do so.”
Drilling will affect future supply and future prices; it will not affect the fundamentals of supply, demand and a cheap dollar today.
The whole purpose of more drilling is to change the supply facts in the future. Until exploratory wells become producing wells drilling does not even affect futures contracts, much less current prices.
Drill for a better future? Yes. Drill to change today’s price? Not going to happen.
Yep. It might be averted a bit if many Americans decide not to travel for Memorial Day and reduce demand. Hey, if I keep driving to work in the morning and see gas at one price and drive back in the evening and see it eight cents higher (this happened yesterday) I might forgo things like weekly grocery shopping, never mind leisure travel!
No vacations this year the chain reaction will be a mean one.Thank you cards can be sent to Obama&Co.
Immediately after taking office in 2009, Osama’s Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah. The fact that this was one of his first regulatory decisions meant that American energy companies were immediately concerned about their ability to produce oil and gas in the future, injecting a level of uncertainty into the market that remains today. And has been compounded by daily stupidity coming from this administration. Stupidity that ranges from their response to the BP oil spill, to continued EPA regulatory rulings to foreign policy decisions.
Its all connected and it all stops with the imam in the big chair in the oral office.
Osama is anti-business, anti-oil, pro-green-energy... pro-deficit spending, not at all interested in fixing our economy... all of which ties into decisions made by energy companies that drive pricing.
Osama leads the charge to restrict American energy while sending our tax dollars to countries like Brazil for them to drill for oil.
In 2008 Senator Osama said on the campaign trail that he doesn’t object to high oil prices as long as they come about gradually, and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu once famously said he hoped the U.S. would “boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” where prices are currently about $7 per gallon.
Also in 2008, Osama told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, told this newspaper in the same year: “Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” That would be, oh, $10 a gallon.
In March of last year, Osama reversed or scaled back nearly every major offshore oil opportunity that has come about since the price spike of 2008—effectively reimposing a moratorium on drilling off the coasts.
He has killed leases in developmentally crucial areas of Alaska. His EPA has refused to issue permits. He used the BP oil spill as an excuse to also shut down the deep-water Gulf.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has revoked oil-and-gas leases.
The EPA is suffocating the coal industry with regulation. One of the president’s only clear State of the Union proposals was to raise taxes on oil and gas.
The White House’s energy policy, says Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research, is “embargoing our own energy supplies to drive up their costs.”
Osama: ‘There’s going to be a day when we look back at $3.05 or $3.15 gasoline as the good old days’
bttt
One of my coworkers said it was $3.67 in Cedar Park at the station that is usually the cheapest around. Went to another station and paid $3.49 / gallon.
Saw one station at $3.45 yesterday in Leander. It’s probably gone up by now though.
Most of us aren’t elites... Liberals seem to feel driving to work - or buying food at a store is optional...
This weekend I was in Chicago to watch the Bulls. $4.20 a gallon, I don’t know why my friend wants to move back into the city.
The Valero at 1431 / Bagdad and WALMART are usually the two lowest. The Valero was the 3.67 yesterday. I saw one other in Cedar Park that was under 3.50 last Friday.
Uncertainty always existed with all untested leases. This is a question of future development, domestically, and future supply. Having those leases did not contribute to expectations about either current or future supply, because exploration had not yet converted any of them into production or determined if and when that would happen.
It was a stupid decision and it did affect the investment scenarios of U.S. domestic oil companies, IN DOMESTIC drilling, and POSSIBLE (but not quantifiable) future domestic production. But, it did not affect current or KNOWN future supply scenarios and therefore did not affect current prices or future's market prices; and would not affect future's market prices until (and if) the leases were converted to active producing wells with some quantifiable capacity. It was a bad decision for long range domestic oil production. It did not affect current supply, demand or prices.
And has been compounded by daily stupidity coming from this administration. Stupidity that ranges from their response to the BP oil spill, to continued EPA regulatory rulings to foreign policy decisions.
Yes, many of those rulings have been stupid and some have given artificial political boosts to other forms of energy, but those boosts have had little impact on current oil supply, demand and markets - yet, and may turn out to have less than expected impact on oil supply, demand and market factors down the road. Stupid as they were, and as little immediate impact as they are, traders have not seen facts by which to price their affects into current oil markets and prices.
"all of which ties into decisions made by energy companies that drive pricing."
You seem to subscribe to one popular myth and a myth that Obama also subscribes to. He considers himself (and his office) as the chief manager of the U.S. economy. He's not. And, contrary to popular belief the U.S. oil majors are not in control of the global energy markets and the prices set by them. They, collectively, control no more than 7% of the world's oil resources and the U.S. domestic market is not the cheapest oil exploration and drilling neighborhood in the world.
So, does some bad Obama decisions help sustain or increase how much oil we import, or will import (at least until he's gone)? Yes. But, do those facts change OIL PRICES NOW or in the immediate future? No.
You mention plenty of reasons to not like Obama and to not like his policies. Regardless, and regardless of any ill intentions on the part of his policy makers;
CURRENT OIL PRICES are, as I said, PRIMARILY a result of:
(1)world immediate supply and world demand driven by ever-increasing world automobile use; (2) the Bernanke cheap-dollar-driven world-commodity-price bubble; (3) institutional investors and hedge funds betting those two conditions continue and Middle East unrest continues.
Obama may be bad for the prospects for a bigger domestic oil industry and larger domestic production - down the road. That only means WHERE we might get more supply in the future. It does not mean that that additional supply alone, or any additional supply, will be larger than additional demand WHEN those supplies come on line (if they do) and therefore those prospects are NOT part of current oil prices or current oil futures pricing.
more insight on a problem you have mis-characterized as stemming from Obama policies and not more global conditions:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2699944/posts
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