O’Reilly, Gas Prices and Reality

Townhall.com ^ | February 28, 2012 | Derek Hunter

[Buckeye McFrog]

O’Reilly is tacitly supporting the Obama strategy, which is to go after Oil Companies and Grrrrrreedy Commodities Traders with Stalinist show trials should this still be dragging down his poll numbers by summer.

Obama could successfully (and briefly) bring prices down by collapsing the futures market. After that it would be Back to the Middle Ages. So timing is everything.

Fox in general seems to be on board with this. One of their business correspondents the other day said that oil “is no longer obeying market fundamentals”. And if the fundamentals no longer apply, well then, gosh who needs those nasty old markets anymore?

[stephenjohnbanker]

” BoR is such an A$$wipe.”

All you needed to say....

[kempo]

The media now has people thinking we produce so much oil in this country that we have to export it. One of the big media lies to fool the stupid.

[TPOOH]

"We still import more crude oil than we produce ourselves so we are quite dependent on world oil pricing. "

Not true...we are now exporting importing and there is a glut of oil on the market.....ecess supply.....the price shoud be much lower.

[FreeAtlanta]

I think the reason the gas prices are cheapest in the middle of the country is because of domestic oil production and refining. California is just insane. Leftist policies have driven gas through the roof.

[sickoflibs]

O Reilly told us ethanol would make us independent of oil, much like Trump said he would as POTUS just call up those what he called god$^# arab mother$#&%$ers on the phone and demand that they sell us oil cheap or he would send in the tanks.

[sickoflibs]

O Reilly told us ethanol would make us independent of oil, much like Trump said he would as POTUS just call up those what he called god$^# arab mother$#&%$ers on the phone and demand that they sell us oil cheap or he would send in the tanks.

[thackney]

We still import more crude oil than we produce ourselves so we are quite dependent on world oil pricing. "

Not true...we are now exporting importing and there is a glut of oil on the market.....ecess supply.....the price shoud be much lower.

I am sorry but you are confusing refined product with crude oil. Click the following pictures for the data sources.

The tiny amount of crude oil we do export goes almost entirely to Canada. It is really a function of closest refinery to that particular oil production.

With our falling domestic demand for refined products, combined with many years of upgrading and expanding our US refineries, we have recently started refining more product than we use. The result is a little bit of net export of refined product. To stop this, we would need to shut down some refineries leaving us short when our economy finally picks back up.

But when you look at ALL petroleum, Crude oil and refined products taken together, you will see we are a significant importer and greatly dependent on world prices.

Even if were we were independent, I don't understand the concept of forcing our production below market value. Should Wisconsin dairy farmers be forced to sell their products at half the price domestically for their price in neighboring Canada just because you want it cheap but did nothing for it?

[FreeAtlanta]

I don’t blame oil companies from exporting oil, if they can get better pricing by exporting. In fact, I would be angry at them if they didn’t. We need our trade deficit reduced and oil exports can help do that.

The key to getting our domestic fuel prices down is consumption and supply.

We actually need to stop decreasing consumption because oil companies are trying to raise prices to match previous income. They have infrastructure to support, unless we want them to fire people and close facilities. The bad economy is creating less travel and less consumption, so the economy has to be improved, but the increase in fuel costs is hurting all aspects of our economy. It is a vicious cycle.

Increasing domestic drilling and exporting to the international market will help our own economy and will help increase consumption which will hopefully get the gas stations competing again low prices to get increase volume.

It is complex. That is why shallow people like BOR and other lefty leaners have difficulty understanding it. They are not abstract thinkers.

[thackney]

Gasoline taxes also are a part of that difference.

http://gasbuddy.com/Tax_Info.aspx

[thackney]

See post #48. You have some false assumptions.

[Gilbo_3]

my tinfoil boonie hat tells me there has simply been a coordinated effort to poison as much of our fuel as poosible to destroy older/stored engines to both cripple em, and force sales of newer ones, for multiple reasons...

the insider bennies of manipulating food crops and myriads of other *coincedentals* fit in there as well...

need to stay away from the microwave oven with this hat...

[moehoward]

"An iPad must be manufactured from countless parts, and the materials to make those parts cost money. Similarly, gasoline has to be refined from oil,

If the oil cartels produced iPads they'd cost $5000.00, half of which would be tax. But, it's a poor comparison because an iPad can for the most part endlessly recycled. We are not talking about a finite resource.

" So if fuel exports are banned and taxed heavily, as O’Reilly suggests,"

Not what he, or Dobbs suggested. They are in favor of an Public Trust modeled after the Alaskan Trust model, that would apply to foreign sales.

[FreeAtlanta]

I am expecting oBozo to make a big show of dumping more of our emergency oil reserves. Did you know he dumped 30 million barrels for "the Arab Spring" last year?

---

SPR drawdowns (from Wikipedia – take with salt)
Petroleum sales
• 1985 - Test sale - 1.1 million barrels (170,000 m3)
• 1990/91 - Desert Storm sale - 21 million barrels (3,300,000 m3)
o 4 million in August 1990 test sale
o January 1991 - 17 million in Presidentially-ordered drawdown
• 1996-97 total non-emergency sales for deficit reduction - 28 million barrels (4,500,000 m3)
• July–August 2000 - 2.8 million barrels (450,000 m3) to supply the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve.
• September–October 2000 - 30 million barrels (4,800,000 m3) in response to a concern over low distillate levels in the North-eastern U.S.
• 2005 - Hurricane Katrina sale - 11 million barrels (1,700,000 m3) Katrina shut down 95% of crude production and 88% of natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico. This amounted to a quarter of total U.S. output. About 735 oil and natural gas rigs and platforms had been evacuated due to the hurricane.
• 2011 - Arab Spring sale - 30 million barrels (4,800,000 m3) to offset disruptions caused by political upheaval in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East. The amount was matched by IEA countries, for a total of 60 million barrels (9,500,000 m3) released from stockpiles around the world.[15]

Petroleum exchanges and loans
Note: Loans are made on a case-by-case basis to alleviate supply disruptions. Once conditions return to normal, the loan is returned to the SPR with additional oil as interest.
• April–May 1996 - 900,000 barrels (140,000 m3) lent to ARCO to alleviate pipeline blockage.
• August 1998 - 11 million barrels (1,700,000 m3) lent to PEMEX in return for 8.5 million barrels (1,350,000 m3) of higher quality crude.
• June 2000 - 1 million barrels (160,000 m3) lent to Citgo and Conoco in response to shipping channel blockage. • October 2002 - 296,000 barrels (47,100 m3) lent to Shell Pipeline Company in advance of Hurricane Lili.
• September–October 2004 - 5.4 million barrels (860,000 m3) lent to Astra Oil, ConocoPhillips, Placid Refining, Shell Oil Company, and Premcor after Hurricane Ivan.
• September–October 2005 - 9.8 million barrels (1,560,000 m3) lent to ExxonMobil, Placid Refining, Valero, BP, Marathon Oil, and Total S.A. after Hurricane Katrina.
• January–February 2006 - 767,000 barrels (121,900 m3) lent to Total Petrochemicals USA due to closure of the Sabine Neches ship channel to deep-draft vessels after a barge accident in the channel.[16] • June 2006 - 750,000 barrels (119,000 m3) of sour crude lent to ConocoPhillips and Citgo due to the closure for several days of the Calcasieu Ship Channel caused by the release of a mixture of storm water and oil. Repaid in early October 2006.
• September 2008 - 250,000 barrels (40,000 m3) loaned to Citgo because it could not secure crude oil in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav.
• September 2008 - 130,000 barrels (21,000 m3) loaned to Placid Refining's Port Allen refinery and 250,000 barrels (40,000 m3) loaned to Marathon Oil due to disruptions from Hurricane Gustav.[17]

[ex-Texan]

[Quix]

EXACTLY

what these traitorous bustards have been engineering toward for decades:

http://twoday.net/static/omega/files/quotes_from_people_who_consider_us_subjects.htm

[Gritty]

O'Reilly always thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Unfortunately for him, unless he has on one of his many bat-sh!t Liberal morons, he usually runs a distant second.

A case in point is last night when he was trying to school Newt on why gas prices are as high as they are. The only thing he schooled were any savvy viewers who knew anything about real markets who then knew it was past time to go to the Home Shopping Network. It also looked like Newt was also happy to quickly get off the stage and not be associated with the FOX Village Idiot.

We gave up watching this fool long ago. The only one we turn off quicker is Whorealdo. O'Blowhard always steps all over his guests with his uniformed opinions and it is pretty clear his regular guests are getting mighty tired of it - but they probably hang around for what must be the big money FOX pays them to get stepped all over with his blowhard abuse.

His "I'm just lookin' out for the folks!" schtick is also getting way too old. The only one he is looking out for is himself - and that isn't working. People with any discernment are tuning out.

[MNJohnnie]

Then whey did the price of oil drop 40% in the next 30 days once Bush revoked the Excutive Order banning on off shore oil drilling in the USA?

[MNJohnnie]

California is not the only insane area. If you look at the DOE regional price index. The North East portion of the US is also the most expense place to buy gasoline and diesel.

"Big Oil" and speculators are merely the scape goat the Leftist propaganda mill trots out to avoid blaming the real culprits.

Out of control Federal, and state, government who are wholly owned subsidiaries of the "Environmental" lobby.

[astounded]

I can’t stand BOR, and really watch the Miller segment on Wednesdays. I think Miller is usually right on.