Posted on 07/23/2007 6:17:52 AM PDT by Daffynition
Note that the prices in the warm nation are taxed FAR less than in the cold land to your North.
Incidentally, that "base" price includes: exploration, transportation, dividends, more taxes not listed, operations, expansions, and myriad expenses too numerous to list.
Yeah, the folks reaping "windfall profits" at 3.5 cents on the dollar (before paying their expenses)duh(which is the gross number published by the press to incite ignorant posts like yours) are FAR more culpable than the GOVVIE which yanks over TWENTY PERCENT (in the USofA) into its coffers.
You want lower fuel prices? REDUCE FUEL TAXES, FRiend.
Exxon-Mobil...
or Coca-Cola.
Look it as a percentage of return on investment.
Why?
Because though the numbers seem huge, so is the investment.
By the time the well I am working is completed, there will be well over 6 million dollars wrapped up in bringing this one well on line.
Just a land rig, nothing really exhorbitant going on here.
I can't give you a guess at estimated production, or the rate, but it would take the daily output from thousands of these wells to supply the East coast alone.
Those costs are just for drilling and putting the well on line, not for transport or refining the product, or transport again to retail facillities.
There are no guarantees any given well will produce, either, and there are definitely multiwell exploration projects where the last well is drilled first.
As for oil companies, they provide outstanding opportunity for employment, directly and indirectly, for persons of all educational levels, from roustabouts to Heads of Exploration and CEOs. So I'm not buying how they are doing anything at "the expense of the working people". THey are paying quite a few of "the working people" for their labors.
As for the next administration starting regulating again, They (assuming you mean the government) have never stopped regulating in my lifetime, and I'm a great-grandpa. They have only found new ways to regulate, or "justify" regulations and taxes, and frankly, this tax the oil companies and consumers and blame the oil companies gambit is getting tired and thin.
Please educate yourself about the industry, the hours we work (CEOs are few and far between, many of us get our hands dirty), the places we work, and conditions we work under before you assume someone is getting screwed.
We buy gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products, too.
As for the politicians drilling anywhere, the only place they drill is into our paychecks.
It is sad they do not have the stones to do so without blaming others.
If the Government changes regulations so often that retrofits are not implemented before they boecome obsolete and then threatens fines of six figures or more a day, you shut down.
We used to have a small refinery near where I live. It was dismantled and shipped to someplace in Africa decades ago, not because it was incapable of producing fuels, but because the upgrades, new environmental compliances, and other regulations involved would cost more than the projected output for the life of the refinery.
About half of American refineries have met similar fates in the last three decades, all at the hands of Government regulation, NIMBYs, and the dirt worshipper lobby.
Nope. The Government is not doing the industry any favors, at least as far as permitting any refinery construction goes, and while that may seem like a good deal for the oil companies, it sticks them with maintaining and upgrading existing facillities and losing revenue during the downtime.
The traditional means of growing involves capturing market share, and the ability to out produce your competition can put you on that growth curve.
Waiting until public outcry "gets loud enough", in the current political climate, would be more likely to lead to government takeover. If you think fuel is expensive now, wait until you have to get it from scalpers on the black market.
Supply and demand.
You got some place to store a few million barrels of oil? It takes roughly 1 million barrels of oil to supply the East Coast for a day, iirc. So just how much (vlolatile, flammable) inventory were you going to stack up where?
Your answer is a thing of beauty!
There's stations all over the country shuttering up because of the lack of gas. (/s) They're so broke Murphy Oil in Arkansas is paying college tuition ($50 mil) for everyone graduating high school in one town. Me and my 75 kids are packing up and moving south! Blackbird.
That paltry 8-10% margin you refer to translates into RECORD QURATERLY PROFITS to the tune of 10's of BILIIONS of dollars, quarter after quarter. In case you don't know what a PROFIT is, that's what's left after they pay all their bills, even their fatcat salaries.
... then jewelry retailers should drawn and quartered over their 2000 to 5000% markups.
You have a vehicle that runs on gold/silver and diamonds? (I guess ya'll got tired of using milk and water prices now on to jewelery?) Man, what are you waiting for, there's zillions to be made?! Of course the analogy is a non-analogy considering our entire way of life, you know chasing that last dollar, depends on oil, and if there was never another piece of jewelry made, BFD. Blackbird.
No you can't. There isn't a one cent difference in the price of gas at any station in Billings, MT. One goes up, they all go up. One goes down, they all go down, keeping the same price bar none. I can throw a rock from downtown and hit any one of three "competing" refinery's. Many if not all States have a minimum price that any station can charge at the pump, nice FRee Enterprise system you're touting there. Blackbird.
Thank you for providing that link.
You haven't clearly shown anything other than the ability to make things up. Try posting some of the data. Start with www.eia.doe.gov if you need a data source.
All I know is I’m sick of having a sore ass every time I fill up my gas tank.
Percentage of revenues to profit doesn't mean anything to you? Why is keep 10¢ on the dollar out of line? If they were broken up into many smaller companies so that each one's total was little, but the same amount of money was kept, would that be better to you?
I’ve long believed that the oil companies and gas stations should post the price of a gallon of gas on the pumps AND post the taxes on every gallon separately...
“OK, that’ll be $2 per gallon. Plus $1.10 in taxes PER GALLON, of course. Don’t like that 30% tax? Sorry, talk to your representative. Your total is $75, please pull ahead.”
The price of gas in Billings, MT ranges from $2.95 to $3.09.
If profit margin by U.S. oil refiners has shot up 158% since 1999 (the year Exxon and Mobil merged). The consumer’s price has also gone up by a huge amount. Are you suggesting they not related?
I would like to see those numbers supported. I suspect you don't mean profit margin but actual dollars. Comparing to 1999 is cherry-picking the data to a year when oil companies we capping wells they couldn't afford to produce when oil was below $10 a barrel and many sold off assets just trying to stay alive.
Again, is keeping 10¢ on the dollar out of line?
Since George Bush became President in 2001, the top five oil companies in the United States have recorded profits of $464 billion through the first quarter of 2007:
ExxonMobil: $158.5 billion
Shell: $108.5 billion
BP: $89.2 billion
ChevronTexaco: $60.9 billion
ConocoPhillips: $46.9 billion
Many industry analysts claim that rising demand in China and India are the big reasons why the price of oil exceeds $60 a barrel. However, they neglect to mention the role U.S. demand plays in setting global crude oil prices. Americans consume 25% of the world’s oil every day (see chart comparing global oil consumption). China, the next biggest consumer, uses less than 7% of the world’s oil each day. America’s huge appetite for oil combined with the fact that the United States is the world’s third largest producer of it (only Saudi Arabia and Russia produce more than we do) creates a strong argument that the United States holds a lot of sway over world oil prices.
The energy bill that President Bush signed in 2005 does nothing to address the U.S. factors that are driving oil and gas prices to record highs. Congress and the White House explicitly rejected efforts to improve fuel economy standards for our cars and trucks (which account for 60% of our oil consumption) or adequately fund fossil fuel alternatives.
The oil companies don’t mind. Since Bush became President, the largest five oil companies operating in the US - ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, BP and Shell - have enjoyed profits of $464 billion, with ExxonMobil leading the way with profits of $158.5 billion.
Meanwhile, gas prices continue to go up up up - and no oil company is reinvesting their profits into the things that will benefit motorists. For example, in 2006 ExxonMobil spent $37.2 buying back its stock and paying dividends - at the same time, the company spent only $3.3 billion on capital investment in the U.S. So there is a direct correlation between record prices paid by consumers and record profits enjoyed by oil companies. As Americans shell out more dollars at the pump, the profit margin by U.S. oil refiners has shot up 158% since 1999 (the year Exxon and Mobil merged).
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/articles.cfm?ID=13912
And yes their total dollar profits are up. So are their expenses up. And the taxes they pay. And the dividends they pay their shareholders up. And the amount of investment they are pouring into exploration and capital investment have shot up the prices for material equipment and labor. Some drilling rig rates have tripled in less than 10 years. The demand for people in the industry hasn’t been seen for more than two decades. The oil industry is paying a lot of money to people willing to turn to this risky business.
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