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The oil markets are on edge with oil sinking into the $20s per barrel. And last week we reported on one place where oil is already trading in the single-digits. Canada’s bitumen is selling for just $8 per barrel. But even that rock bottom price is higher than what one oil seller earned for a shipment recently. In a bizarre turn of events, Bloomberg reported that Flint Hill Resources, a refining unit owned by the Koch brothers, said that they would purchase sour crude from North Dakota for $-0.50 per barrel. That’s right: a negative price. Oil has become so...

CNBCJanuary 18, 2016 While gas prices are low nationwide, some stations are slashing the fuel's price to rock-bottom levels to the tune of less than 50 cents a gallon. The drastic price cuts are part of a gas price war at three Houghton Lake, Mich., stations. During the last three days, the prices dropped below a buck per gallon, falling as low as 46 cents at Sunrise Marathon. Meanwhile, the Beacon & Bridge gas station was as low as 47 cents, said employees of each station in interviews with CNBC.(snip)

The Koch brothers are actually charging $0.50/bbl to take low grade oil at their Flint Hills Resources refining arm./ North Dakota Sour is a high-sulfur grade of crude and "is a small portion of the state's production, with less than 15,000 barrels a day coming out of the ground," Bloomberg notes, citing John Auers, executive vice president at Turner Mason & Co. in Dallas.

The price of gas hit a stunning low -- just 47 cents per gallon -- in Michigan on Sunday. Michigan was the first state to have gas under $1 in likely over a decade, Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, told ABC News today. A gas station in Houghton Lake, Michigan, hit the 47 cents mark after a price war between three stations in the town, DeHaan said.

I live a half hour away and it's $1.77. Just got word from a friend. Check it with Gas Buddy.

The latest dilemma facing economists is why "unequivocally good" low oil prices haven't sparked excuberant consumer spending across America. We have discussed the simple (though awkward for the establishment) answer many times - soaring costs for 'shelter' and healthcare have hoovered up every penny saved (and more); and now, a new study proves it- exposing the reality that many Obamacare customers pay more than 10 percent of their incomes toward coverage (and some paying considerably more). The shocking findings show that, as CNBC summarizes, One in 10 Obamacare customers who earn between just two and five times the federal poverty...

The glut in oil is expected to continue for the next year or so before balancing in late 2016, but the pain for liquefied natural gas (LNG) could be just beginning. Building LNG export terminals is a long-term proposition. It can take years to develop a greenfield project, bringing a lump of new capacity online long after the project was initially planned, exposing developers to the possibility that market conditions could change in the interim. It is not unlike a conventional oil project, such as an offshore well, which also can take years (as opposed to a much shorter lead...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- For 25 days in a row, U.S. drivers have seen the retail price for gasoline fall and that should be the prevailing trend through year's end, AAA reports. The motor club reports a national average retail price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at $2.04, a fraction of a cent less than Monday and 15 cents, or 6.7 percent, less than one month ago. In a weekly report on the retail sector, AAA said the end to an unusually busy season of refinery maintenance, largely in the Great Lakes states, and slumping demand are...

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and many of us will spend time with our families eating too much food and strategically waiting for couch spots to open up so we can sneak in a quick catnap when our unsuspecting relatives abandon their posts for another slice of pie. It's a time when we are thankful for the friends, family, and food. We should also be thankful for fracking. Although many people may not know it, fracking has lowered the cost of energy and other goods and services, makes America more energy-independent, and it is done in an environmentally responsible way....

In a world in which the Cold War is a fading memory, North Korea and Cuba endure as museums of communism, so no one will forget how criminally insane it always was. In a world haunted by the specter of persistently falling prices, some countries are creating severe inflation, so we can be grateful for its virtual disappearance. One of the governments providing this public service is that of Venezuela, where the currency has lost so much value that even robbers reject it. A recent carjacking victim told The New York Times his armed captors had no interest in his...

There goes crude oil again. On Tuesday morning, West Texas Intermediate crude futures in New York fell 4% to as low as $43.03 per barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was also lower, near $50 per barrel, after on Monday having its biggest one-day jump in a month. We got OPEC's latest monthly production numbers Tuesday morning, and they showed that production surged to a three-year high in July. The 12-member oil cartel has overshot its production target for at least a year in a bid to maintain its market share. After what seemed like a recovery in prices around...

U.S. drivers can look forward to $2 gas later this year, thanks in part to the Iran nuclear deal announced Tuesday. Gas may only dip a few cents when the Iranian oil first starts to flow again, but by September drivers could see big savings. "Once we get past Labor Day, we should see gas falling by 10 to 15 cents a month," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service. "By December a lot of places are going to see gasoline at $2 or less." Iran hasn't been able to sell oil to the United...

It's the little things that matter. What can you do to top a deal in which socialists bail out even worse socialists, which we got this morning from the Greeks and the masters of the Eurozone? How about a deal in which a group of Islamic fanatics get the go-ahead to build a bomb from a guy who is either the most naive fool ever to grace the world stage or a complete Muslim sympathizer? HTML5 video is not supported! Maybe you can be both, come to think of it. But don’t despair! While the Iranians are building their bomb,...

The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County recorded its largest daily increase since May 1 Friday, rising 11.1 cents to $3.656. The Orange County average price recorded its largest daily increase since Feb. 27, rising 12.8 cents to $3.625, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. The average price in Los Angeles County had dropped 48 of the previous 52 days. It is 10.3 cents more than one week ago but 6.5 cents less than a month ago and 50.8 cents lower than one year ago. The Orange County...

For decades, entrepreneurs in Oklahoma and Texas have looked to the immense natural resources found beneath our states’ soil, convinced that with a dream and a little hard work they could revolutionize an industry. These entrepreneurs have characterized the innovative spirit that has made the sister states places of promise for countless Americans. We are proud to represent Oklahoma and Texas, respectively, and together we believe we can unleash the American energy renaissance that is already underway. To do so, we need to scale back the government, restore state and local control, and welcome technological advancement to tap into the...

US investment in biofuels are to be expanded under proposals advanced by the US EPA. Under the proposed rule announced Friday, the amount of ethanol in the gasoline supply would increase in coming years, just not as much as set out under federal law. That approach drew criticism from ethanol and farm groups that have pushed to keep high volumes of ethanol in gasoline. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a robust renewable fuels standard while campaigning in Iowa, host of the leadoff presidential caucuses next year. … In a bid to ethanol producers, the administration also...

Full Title: Cheaper oil isn't such a benefit for US economy anymore as pullbacks in drilling cause damage If there was one thing most economists agreed on at the start of the year, it was this: Plunging oil prices would boost the U.S. economy. It hasn't worked out that way. The economy is thought to have shrunk in the January-March quarter and may barely grow for the first half of 2015 — thanks in part to sharp cuts in energy drilling. And despite their savings at the gas pump, consumers have slowed rather than increased their spending.... So what did...

U.S. drivers are projected to pay an average of $2.45/gallon (gal) for regular grade gasoline this summer (April through September), according to EIA's Short-Term Energy and Summer Fuels Outlook released yesterday. This year's projected average summer price is down from a $3.59/gal average during summer 2014. The lower retail price this summer reflects a significant drop in world crude oil prices from last summer. As the main input cost in the refining process, crude oil is the major driver of retail gasoline prices, and U.S. gasoline prices tend to follow prices of the international benchmark Brent crude. For summer 2015,...

U.S. oil production is on track to reach an annual all-time high by September of this year, according to Rystad Energy. If production does indeed top out, then supply levels may soon hit a peak as well. That, in turn, could lead to shrinking supplies. The oil-and-gas consulting-services firm estimates an average 2015 output of 9.65 million barrels a day will be reached in five months — topping the previous peak annual reading of 9.64 million barrels a day in 1970. Coincidentally, the nation’s crude inventories stand at a record 471.4 million barrels, based on data from U.S. Energy Information...

It’s not even 8 a.m. and rush hour is on in northwestern New Mexico. Dozens of big white trucks and water tankers, neon flags flying, head north to the gas patch. I’m driving south, through Aztec, and as I pass the retro-orange A&W on the edge of town, I pull up alongside a drilling rig. The thing’s huge, too huge, it seems, to be rolling along the same road as my little Nissan. Yet the strange, rolling infrastructure has been a familiar site around here for decades — back in 1948, when a UFO purportedly crashed out on a nearby...