Gas Prices: was it a scam all along?

[Wakalapi]

It was back in July when I stopped at a gas station in Lake Oswego, Oregon. A Shell station, Dave's Palisades Shell. My Verizon Navigator aGPS found me the station with the lowest price along my route. So I found the place and the price was "only" $3.69 at a time most other places in the area were $3.79 to still over $4.00/gallon. The clerk boasted that his station always has the lowest prices in the Portland area (sometimes the Arco at Troutdale is lower).

And then he let the cat out of the bag.

He told me that after Labor Day, when all the other stations would just be getting under $3 again, his station would already be around $2.70-2.80. Well, the time came around and he was exactly right. Psychic? I think not. Remember that this was back in July.

He knew when the prices would go down and by how much. He knew it because it was planned that way all along. He said he knew it since early summer.

The gas companies knew we would all gripe about high gas prices the first time they went over two bucks. So they took advantage of current events like the Gulf Coast hurricanes and the war in Iraq, and cleverly began to crank the prices sky-high (for North American market standards). Then when the prices came back down to under $2.50 again, we all think we're getting a super deal. Eh??

It's no coincidence that the prices have been falling leading to the election, either. I sort of remember that happening four years ago, too.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.........

[Coyot_In_The_House]

Koda....

Dares a whole lot of things going on......A whole lot.....

Conspiracy Theorists of the world unite.....!

[Blackbear]

Don't they actually know it because of what the price per barrell was sold at??? I still agree it's a scam though...LOL

It's all confusing to me.... they pump it out of the ground here.. make the gas here.. ship it from here and yet Alaska is still paying 3.19 a gallon right now for it....

[Wakalapi]

Don't they actually know it because of what the price per barrell was sold at??? I still agree it's a scam though...LOL

It's all confusing to me.... they pump it out of the ground here.. make the gas here.. ship it from here and yet Alaska is still paying 3.19 a gallon right now for it....

You'd think, eh? According to community tracking data at GasBuddy.com - Find Low Gas Prices in the USA and Canada the lowest prices are consistently around southern Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. Stations in the Springfield, MO area are currently in the $1.86 to $1.94 range. The highest prices are California and New York, with much of the West Coast and New England in general trailing not far behind. Prices up here in Washington are mostly $2.20 to $2.50 and much of that Alaskan oil is refined in Anacortes, maybe ten miles from the Swinomish Indian Reservation where I once worked.

[Fat Albert]

Of course it is a scam. If you understand how the process works you will understand that prices change daily based on decisions made a while ago. In my opinion, today, gas prices dropping has everything to do with the recession. Remember that gas is only worth what consumers are willing to pay (in action not just word). It skyrocketed because the companies wanted to see how far we were willing to go. Everyone kept on paying even thought no one liked it. At most the typical consumer stopped driving for fun as much but generally we have not changed our consumption habits (carpooling and public transportation as an example). Now add the higher prices everyone is paying for travel, groceries, office supplies, clothes and so on and you have found that we are changing a lot of our habits to save money including only driving when you have to. Finally as far as prices falling around election day, I seem to remember it falls every November as the season starts to change, election or not. I did not research that statement so its just a guess on my part.

Just recently BP announced 10 billion dollars of profit in the third quarter. That means they made 10 BILLION dollars beyond their costs in a three month period. 3 months. That is 148% higher than their profits this same span last year (July to September - before the recession really took hold). Gas companies are always looking at the future so they can 'predict' consumption. That is why prices are falling now as the recession is blowing up in ways the companies could not predict and OPEC is looking at reducing production (less oil = higher prices). Simple economics but a recession is a great equalizer.

[Wakalapi]

You know, the only thing I'm kinda worried about now is the effect this might have on the market for hybrids and the push for alternative fuel vehicles. I wonder if all those big SUV's collecting dust on the car lots will start selling fast again. Even thought the word "recession" is bounced around alot in the news, people with the same jobs and money they've always had will continue to spend it. Maybe not as fast, but the will spend.

[Fat Albert]

Judging by how the sales numbers for SUV's have tanked in all companies in America, I think the natural step for the motor companies will be to slap a 'green' hybrid engine in these boats and call it good. Prices are low now because the average consumer can not afford the upkeep on these vehicles. Now that I think about it, I was wrong in my earlier post... consumers have changed habits. Since before last May they have been backing out of the SUV market in a big way both in new sales and in selling their SUV's to buy smaller cars. I think it will stay that way though because I bet gas prices go up when the gas companies feel it is ok to go after the dollar. They were at 4 a gallon not so long ago so they don't want it down below 2. I bet it sits at $2.50 (here in Oklahoma where it is $1.98 today) by January. I agree that people will continue to spend but they will be more aware of how gas can change their pocketbook.

[Blackbear]

Cadillac has already done that... a hybrid SUV that is. And Chevy has a 1 ton hybrid truck.

Interesting that find cheap gas site... the cheapest gas in the state of alaska is at the shell station by the fairgrounds, about five miles from where I live!

[Wakalapi]

I'd really like one of these:

[WhoMe]

Does anybody remember in the 1970's the news reported that the price of gas was increasing because "the earth was running out of fossil fuel?" What a crock!

As gas rose to over $4.00 earlier this year, "speculation" of future events was justificaton for quickly increased gas cost. Huh? How come when postive actual events came to pass to lower the price of oil, gas prices were slow to react accordingly?

Yes, the oil companies and oil producing countries are making like bandits.

The same ol' cliche still remains the same "as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer."

[injunboy]

if the big oil companies wanted gas back at 410 a gallon by July 4th you couldnt do anything about it..

i dig diesels. diesel technology was an oxymoron but its come a lonnnng way since let say the 1980s. i think of diesel as oil in the form of fuel. so whats with the previous 5.00 a gallon benchmark. largely its less refined and contains less additives and theres more of it. is demand really so intense we gotta charge so much for it.

i dont wanna get off on a diesel tangent but diesels make soo much sense. the world is basically powered by diesels but here in the states.. regulation is killing it. my favorite maker Caterpillar just said were gettin out of the over the road engine business!!

[Fat Albert]

I remember when diesel was cheaper than regular gas. I suspect that the cost of diesel is so high because it is the backbone for industry. All the trucks that haul our goods and the industrial engines and the tractors and so on are all powered by diesel. There is no choice/ alternative so we have seen truckers going out of business for a while now. This is also why farmers have been moving to electric water pumps lately.

[kneegrow_native]

Go ahead and call me a conspiracy theorist after this one.

George Bush has done a great job convincing people that he is a stupid man who became president. George is from a family who has owned an oil business and no doubt could get richer by pumping up the price for him and his back rubbing buddies.

All he needed to do was find a decent excuse to invade Iraq and create some kind of instability in the Middle East and the price will go up. September 11 was a pretty good excuse, along with the making some people think that this was to finish what Daddy did not (get Sadaam). Actually this served two purposes, driving up the price of oil, and getting his contractor buddies really high paying jobs rebuilding Iraq.

No one in the industry is going to complain, they are getting rich beyond what they had hoped, including the Bush family, who now are probably pretty good buddies with everyone who greatly benefited off the higher price of gas, and now those new buddies might owe them some favors.

I guess the oil folks found out just how far they could push the public before they would start cutting back on driving. Unfortunately they also found out that by driving up the price of gas beyond belief they could cause a recession. The economy slowed down because people just couldn’t afford to buy as many goods as before, some couldn’t pay their credit card bills because buying expensive gas was more important, which could be part of the reason why lending institutions are going belly up, a lot of money went out and none is coming back.

So now in the face of an economic crisis the price of oil is plummeting, probably in hopes of getting people to start buying gas again, go out and buy goods and services and revive this stagnant economic situation.

As George Bush exits the oval office he leaves us with a controversial war to clean up, a crappy economic situation, and he has managed to alienate us from the rest of the world, but hey, at least gas is getting cheaper.

[Wakalapi]

Diesels oil contains more energy potential than gasoline. It might not seem that way with the thrown match test as gasoline certainly flares up faster but that's only because of it's aggressive flash point. Diesel has approx. 147,000 BTU/gallon compared to gasoline's 125,000 BTU/gallon. This is exactly why Diesel (sometimes capitalized because it carries its inventor's last name) pushes the load further per gallon: more MPG's. Diesel's pollutants are slightly more noticeable, including good old fashioned soot, hence the stinky smell and dark clouds of exhaust. But chemically, is Diesel more polluting than gasoline if both transform into exhaust and Diesel is used at a lower volume to produce the same work? Does some of the gasoline transform in to 'less harmful' emissions through mechanical catalytic converters and oxidizing agents? The jury is still out on both those questions and industry is still working on better implementations for both.

Most railway locomotives and large ships use a Diesel-electric configuration. The Diesel engine is set to run at a fairly constant speed in RPM, generally at what is determined to be its most efficient speed, powering an electric generator which in turn powers electric motors at the wheels or propellors. This works great for trains and ships that very seldomly speed up or slow done on a long haul. It is not so great for street vehicles. Still, trains are better for mass transit than buses in terms of getting the most people from Point A to Point B due to the low rolling resistance of steel wheels atop steel tracks. Comparitively, a freight train hauling hundreds of tons of cargo can do so on a fraction of the fuel it would take for a fleet of semi's, cars and vans to do the same. The downside is the train's lack of maneuverability, being obviously restricted to its tracks, and that its great efficiency depends on the huge cargo volumes. Thus, you must go to the train depot and you must schedule your haul; that's the trade-off. With a truck, you can still haul its own maximum load while using less fuel than an actual, fully loaded train, you can drive your load straight to your warehouse without the need of a railroad spur, and you can do so at your own convenience.

Getting back to fuel discussion, dieselelectric is great for giant vehicles, perhaps not so great for highway vehicles. At least, it hasn't been tried en masse. An electric motor capable of producing car driveable horsepower (746 watts = 1 hp) is a sizable beast, but it has been achieved and several models from various manufacturers are or will soon be available. However, like the Honda and the others, they are powered by the new hydrogen fuel cell technology rather than fuel-burning electric generators. Hybrid cars use fuel-burning engines to turn transmission shafts just like old-school, but also have electric motors to assist whenever a boost is needed.

An option that was considered in the past was gas turbine technology. In the 1950's Chrysler produced the Turbine (its aptly named car model). Some military vessels use gas turbine power plants for increased speed, but they can be implemented with fair efficiency as well. Like those ships, the Chrysler used a gas turbine engine (literally a tiny jet engine) whose downblast was harnessed by an impellor, which then turned a transmission shaft. Of the 55 cars produced, 46 were scrapped to avoid certain tarriffs, six were mechanically disabled and are now in various museums, leaving only three fully functional Chrysler Turbines. Their specific setup resulted in poorer fuel mileage than piston-engine vehicles, though there was much improvement for research and development. Unfortunately, this was also the time Chrysler was on the rocks as a company and such projects had to be abandoned.

PERSONALLY
Since I usually need to haul around other people or their kids as part of our traveling drum group, I would like to have a Dodge Sprinter van. Models made just a few years ago had an available 2.5L turbodiesel, enabling the high topped, full size plus van to achieve 26MPG on the highway. Newer models have upgraded to a turbodiesel V6 and emphasize size and power (large enough to serve as commercial delivery vans) but still get around 20-22MPG by highway. They are also the basis for some smaller motorhomes. How about a MH that sleeps 4-6 persons with a shower, toilet and kitchen, that gets 22MPG? Not bad.

[WhoMe]

Go ahead and call me a conspiracy theorist after this one.

George Bush has done a great job convincing people that he is a stupid man who became president. George is from a family who has owned an oil business and no doubt could get richer by pumping up the price for him and his back rubbing buddies.

All he needed to do was find a decent excuse to invade Iraq and create some kind of instability in the Middle East and the price will go up. September 11 was a pretty good excuse, along with the making some people think that this was to finish what Daddy did not (get Sadaam). Actually this served two purposes, driving up the price of oil, and getting his contractor buddies really high paying jobs rebuilding Iraq.

No one in the industry is going to complain, they are getting rich beyond what they had hoped, including the Bush family, who now are probably pretty good buddies with everyone who greatly benefited off the higher price of gas, and now those new buddies might owe them some favors.

I guess the oil folks found out just how far they could push the public before they would start cutting back on driving. Unfortunately they also found out that by driving up the price of gas beyond belief they could cause a recession. The economy slowed down because people just couldn’t afford to buy as many goods as before, some couldn’t pay their credit card bills because buying expensive gas was more important, which could be part of the reason why lending institutions are going belly up, a lot of money went out and none is coming back.

So now in the face of an economic crisis the price of oil is plummeting, probably in hopes of getting people to start buying gas again, go out and buy goods and services and revive this stagnant economic situation.

As George Bush exits the oval office he leaves us with a controversial war to clean up, a crappy economic situation, and he has managed to alienate us from the rest of the world, but hey, at least gas is getting cheaper.

Kneegrow,


This is about the best thing you have ever posted on Powwows.com!!!