Fuel costs

[BLUEJEEPLAB]

I guess life in the Miami Valley isn't so bad, we are sitting at around 2.42 for Premium and I can get regular for the Jeep at 2.22. Pretty bad when 2.22 is Cheap Gas. I filled my lawn mower gas can the other day and it cost me more than it did to fill my old 69 Cutlass back in the late 70s.

[Pat Kelly]

Originally posted by Jerry
In central Colorado the price for regular unleaded (85 octane) is running $2.74 - $2.76 per gallon. Thats down for the high of $3.26 around Labor Day.

I don't expect prices to fall much more than that, and in fact I think they will go up again before the summer season starts next May.

A couple statistics from energy company profits statements this quarter:

Shell: net ncome up 42 percent to 6.67 billion
Marathon Oil: net income up 22 percent
Exxon-Mobile: net income up 44 percent to 7.86 billion
Unocal: net income 454 million, up from 269 million same quarter last year.

Remember, these are quarterly (3 month) numbers.

I was watching a program that addressed this issue and the reply made sense (sadly). The oil companies made more money not necessicarily by a higher profit margin on the cost but by the increased volume of petroleum sold (worldwide). They still made 8 or 9 cents per gallon but sold billions and billions of gallons.
So yes, income went up. We bought more.

[xs650mike]

NorCal prices still dropping

Gassed my car this AM at Two Jacks in Kelseyville, 87 oct. regular @ $2.659/gallon. Price at Unocal up the street 87 reg @ $2.739.

Unocal currently is the only company in California with no MTBE in their gas but I won't patronize them because they're owned by Conoco/Phillips whose foreign subsidiary is involved in developing oil fields in Iran. Iran has been designated as a terrorist sponsor. It is illegal for US companies to do business with terrorist sponsors hence the foreign subsidiary dodge which enables Conoco/Phillips to skirt the law. Conoco/Phillips' "foreign subsidiary" consists solely of a mail drop in the Caymans. Halliburton is using exactly the same scam in order to develop oil fields in Syria which allows training camps for the same terrorists who are killing our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two corporations have shown absolutely no loyalty to this country, their only loyalty is to their bottom line. IMO the corporate officials responsible should be in jail. I won't do business with traitors!

[Jerry]

not necessicarily by a higher profit margin on the cost but by the increased volume of petroleum sold

By that standard we would have had to have a 42 percent increase in volume sold in 1 quarter (Shell) Personally I don't believe it.

[xs650mike]

My sense is that the oil companies are keeping the same percentage margin which means the higher the price the more they make despite their protestations that high per-barrel oil prices hurt them too. I was listening to Armstrong & Getty on talk radio (out of Sacramento) the other morning and they were "livid" about the new quarterly report from Exxon showing a 75% increase in profits for the quarter which they said is an all-time record. These guys are not California pinko-socialists either, they're conservative Republicans. Looks like disasters are good for the oil biz.

[panshovel]

In Wilmington, Delaware $2.21 to $2.27 for 87 octane. The price is really dropping here after those profits for this quarter were announced.

[xs650mike]

Gassed yesterday at Costco, Santa Rosa, Calif.

[xs650mike]

Forgot to include image. Santa Rosa Costco 11/2/05.

[Jimbo11]

Here in Ok it's $2.00 a Gallon.

[xs650mike]

Originally posted by Jimbo11
Here in Ok it's $2.00 a Gallon.

Been a long time since $2/gal. here in Calif.

[BLUEJEEPLAB]

We're getting close here in Ohio. Maybe the Oil companies have decided to settle for a 50% increase in profits this quarter...

2.09 for reg and 2.39 for Premium XS food.

[bandet01]

2.07 for the truck and 2.47 for the xs since i run sunco 94 in the xs it runs better with it

[xs650mike]

Originally posted by bandet01
2.07 for the truck and 2.47 for the xs since i run sunco 94 in the xs it runs better with it

Wish we had 94 octane here, my XS650s like the high octane stuff better (holed a piston due to pre-ignition detonation tho it might have been an intake leak). My XS11SF runs great on 87 octane (dunno if maybe it'd been re-jetted by the PO). Funny, I notice a slight drop in power on 91 octane. My XS400 and Chrysler 5th Ave (318 2bbl) run fine on 87 too.

[TopCatGr58]

Well, out here in the "middle east" of the US, the price for regular finally dropped below the $2.00 mark, seen $1.98, YEAH!!!!

Looks like the pending Congressional hearings are rattling a few folks at the top!?
T.C.

[xs650mike]

Hearings?

Saw a bit of the "hearings" where the oil industry is being called upon to explain itself. This is a real softball deal, nobody's under oath. That way they can lie without commiting perjury. Senator Boxer made a show of confrontation but every last one of these people took a lot of oil money including Senator Boxer. The prices will go back up as soon as the focus is off oil prices...mark my words. An oil company economist explained that the oil price structure is just too complicated for laypeople like United States Senators to possibly understand and gave assurances that the oil industry is doing it's best to hold down prices. He even went so far as to say that high prices hurt the oil companies! All of the oilmen were wearing very nice suits as were most of the senators.

This was just like the California legislature's "investigation" of oil price fixing. They asked some industry executives if they were fixing prices and they all said no. The legislature concluded that there was no price fixing. This "investigation" has become an annual ritual in California.

The oil industry made $32,000,000,000.00 in the last quarter, yep that's $32 billion in three months! Exxon/Mobil made $10 billion by itself and their CEO was given a $38,000,000.00 bonus for the quarter on top of his salary for bringing profits up 75%, an all time record. The oil companies are making $1,200.00 per minute right now. I got these figures from the business report on the ABC affiliate TV station in San Francisco.

The geniuses in Congress and the White House recently gave the oil industry a $6 billion subsidy to help them out in their hour of need. Oh boo hoo hoo the poor oil companies are in such big trouble what with the high prices (sniff) and the losses to Katrina (snuffle). Maybe we should take up a collection!