Thread: The scoop on gas.

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Published: 5/24/08, 11:05 AM EDT
By JOHN PORRETTO and JOHN WILEN
(AP) - Consider the game of chicken that plays out every day across Pennsylvania State Highway 441. In Marietta, where the road hugs the Susquehanna River, a Rutter's Farm Store gas station stands on one side, a Sheetz gas station on the other.

Kelly Bosley, who manages Rutter's, doesn't even have to look across the highway to know when Sheetz changes its price for a gallon of gas. When Sheetz raises prices, her own pumps are busy. When Sheetz lowers prices, she has not a car in sight.

She calls Rutter's headquarters to report the competition's new price and wait for instructions.

"I call a lot of times and say, 'They went down, hurry up! Hurry up! Call me! Call me!' Or it could be where theirs goes up, and I'll say, 'Take your time! You know, I like being busy.' But I have no control over that."

You think you feel helpless at the pump?

Bosley makes a living selling gas - and even she has little control over what it costs.

So how exactly are gas prices set? What determines the hair-pulling figure you see displayed in large electronic or plastic numbers? Why is a gallon of gas, say, $4.11 - not $4.10 or $4.12? Why is the price different across the street?

It all starts with oil.

The biggest factor in the skyrocketing price of gasoline is the historic ascent of crude oil, which has surged from $45 per barrel in 2004 to more than $135 this past week, setting new record highs all the while.

In the first quarter of this year, based on a retail price of gas that now seems like a steal - $3.11 a gallon - crude oil accounted for all but about a dollar, or 70 percent, of the cost, according to the federal government.

The rest is a complex mix of factors, from the cost of turning oil into gas to taxes to marketing costs to, sometimes, nothing more than the competitive whims of your local gas station owner.

Not that understanding the breakdown makes it any less cringe-inducing to fill 'er up.

___

First a primer on how gas gets to your tank:

Once oil is pumped from the ground, it can be sold on the spot market, a last-minute trading arena where oil companies and distributors buy and sell to each other, or straight to refiners. After it's brewed into gasoline, the product can again be sold on the spot market, or directly to wholesalers, who in turn can supply their own stations or sell it to other retailers.

Each step of the way, buyers and sellers negotiate a price until, finally, drivers pay the ultimate tab at the pump.

At the starting point of all this is the price of oil - which, like the oil itself, is nothing if not crude.

The knee-jerk villains are the oil companies, fat with multibillion-dollar profits, frequent targets of populist anger. But wait: The oil companies don't set the price of oil or the cost of a gallon of gas.

Prices are a function of the open market, the result of futures contracts being traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, or Nymex, and other exchanges around the world.

Buying the current July crude oil futures contract means you're buying oil that will be delivered by the end of July. But most investors who trade futures have no intention of ever accepting the underlying oil: Like stock investors who frequently buy and sell their holdings, they're simply betting that prices will rise or fall.

Of late, on the Nymex, oil futures have been rising.

Why? Blame the falling dollar. Oil is priced in U.S. dollars, and the weaker the dollar gets, the more attractive dollar-denominated oil contracts are to foreign investors - or any investor looking for a safe haven in the turbulent stock market.

The rush of buyers keeps pushing oil futures to a series of new records, and the rest of the energy complex, including gasoline futures, has followed. That pushes up the price of gas that goes into your tank.

"Crude is the driver," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Ill. "As long as it stays up there, gasoline's not going to be able to decline much at all, even if demand slips. That's just the way it is."

There is some evidence Americans are buying less gas as the price marches higher, and common sense suggests they would cut back even more if gas rose to $4.50 or $5 a gallon.

Lower demand should mean lower prices - but it takes time for that to happen, given the enormous scale of refining operations that produce gasoline.

"Once demand begins to slow, that needs to translate into inventories, then you get some price weakening," Ritterbusch said. "But it takes a while."

Oil and gasoline prices often move in the same direction, but they aren't linked directly. In fact, while oil prices have more than doubled in the past year, gasoline is only up about 19 percent during the same time.

Oil prices often fluctuate with production decisions from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies about 40 percent of the world's crude, or when conflict in the Middle East or Nigeria threatens supplies.

For example, oil prices rose $2.46 in one day last month amid reports a ship under contract to the Defense Department fired warning shots at two boats in the Persian Gulf that may have been Iranian.

A Navy spokesman later said the origin of the boats was unclear, but the news raised concerns that a conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces could cut oil supplies from the region. That same day, gas prices rose another 2.1 cents to a then-record national average of $3.577 a gallon on other supply concerns.

And the rise has only grown more dramatic. Oil sprinted higher this past week, rising more than $4 a barrel on Wednesday alone and past $135 on Thursday.

As for gasoline prices: They're closely tied to demand from U.S. drivers and how efficiently refineries are operating. Falling production or inventories often send prices skyrocketing.

Those prices can vary greatly depending on the region.

The Gulf Coast is the source of about half the gasoline produced in the United States, and areas farthest from there tend to have higher prices because of the cost of shipping gas via pipeline and tanker truck all over the country.

Some of those places, like California and New York, also have higher local taxes that push the price higher.

Oil companies may not set the price of oil and gasoline, but not everyone is willing to sit back and let them claim to be innocent bystanders.

In particular, for the second time this year, Big Oil's biggest executives were on Capitol Hill in recent days getting pummeled by many in Congress for their record profits while Americans struggle with record fuel prices.

"Where is the corporate conscience?" Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the top executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies.

___

Soaring gas prices have led to cries for a variety of answers, from Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain's suggestion to suspend the federal gas tax this summer to President Bush's call to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and some offshore waters that are now off limits to oil development.

Others have suggested a windfall profits tax on oil companies, although some economists say that might actually hurt supply. Oil companies say they're not to blame for spiking fuel prices, and their earnings, measured against revenue, are in line with other industries.

On top of that, rising oil prices have sharply cut profit margins for refining, and that hits the major oil companies - which both pump oil and refine it for use as gasoline.

A giant like Exxon Mobil can handle the blow. Its refining and marketing profits for the first quarter were down 39 percent from a year ago, but Exxon still banked a nearly $11 billion profit because of the hefty prices earned on crude it pumped out of the ground.

Smaller refiners aren't so fortunate. Sunoco Inc.'s refining and supply business lost $123 million in the first quarter, hurt by lower margins. Tesoro Corp. lost $82 million for the same period.

In any case, huge profits at big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron aren't because of high prices at the pump. Their massive profits are tied to their exploration and production arms, which are benefiting from record crude prices.

Higher crude costs also have squeezed profits at the refining arms of companies like ConocoPhillips, which don't produce enough crude themselves to refine at full capacity without buying more oil from other producers.

CEO Jim Mulva said ConocoPhillips, the second-largest U.S. refiner behind Valero Energy Corp., buys about 2 million barrels of crude a day at market prices to refine into gasoline and other products.

"If oil costs us $30 a barrel or $40 a barrel or $120 a barrel, that's why the cost of gasoline is what it is," he said. "It's not because of taxes. It's not because of ... refining and distribution. It's because of the cost of oil."

___

But it's not only about the price of oil. Other costs are a factor - though they've remained relatively stable.

For example, federal and state taxes added 40 cents to a gallon of gas in the first three months of this year, roughly the same amount as they added four years ago.

California's 63.9 cents of tax is the nation's highest, Alaska's 26.4 cents the lowest. How the money is used varies from state to state, though the federal take helps to build and maintain highways and bridges.

Marketing and distribution costs - the tab for delivering gasoline from refiner to retailer - were 27 cents to start the year, only 6 cents above the cost four years ago.

The cost of refining added 27 cents to a gallon in the first quarter of this year, a nickel less than what it added in 2004, according to the Energy Information Administration.

That refining occurs at sprawling industrial complexes across the U.S., with most of the biggest along the Gulf Coast. Barrels of crude arrive each day by pipeline, ship and barge. The refineries, by heating, treating and blending the raw oil, turn out products like diesel and lubricating oil.

And, of course, gasoline.

___

What happens when that gasoline makes its way to your neighborhood gas station?

Major oil companies own fewer than 5 percent of gas stations. Most are owned by small retailers - and many of them say they're struggling these days to turn a profit on gas. That's because wholesale gasoline prices have risen sharply in recent months - again, blame it on crude - but station owners have been unable to raise pump prices fast enough to keep pace.

And you can't keep jacking up the price when drivers are buying less.

Gas station owners face a balancing act: They must try to maintain a price that allows them to afford the next shipment of gasoline but not give the competition an edge.

Stations pay tens of thousands of dollars for each gas shipment before they see a cent in the register. Eventually, many make only a few cents on a gallon of gasoline, a margin that can disappear altogether when credit card fees are added in.

Thank goodness for beef jerky and sodas.

Most gasoline retailers long ago got past any illusion they can make money by selling gas. They rely on gas sales to drive traffic to their shops, where they hope auto repairs or food and drink sales will help them turn a profit.

"You're always out there competing with the guy next door - literally with the guy across the street - and worried too about how you're going to pay for your next supply," said Rayola Dougher, a senior economic adviser at the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's trade association.

In the Philadelphia suburb of Havertown, Pa., earlier in the week, Sunoco station operator Steve Kehler received a load of gasoline - 9,000 gallons - which, at a wholesale price of $3.729 a gallon, cost him 4 cents more than the previous load.

That left him in a sticky situation: Should he raise prices right away to recoup some of his higher gasoline expenses, or should he hold off for a couple of days in hopes his competitors will also have to raise their prices?

"I'm surrounded by $3.89's, and I'm already at $3.91," said Kehler, referring to his prices and those of some nearby competitors. "I'm going to play a little waiting game right now."

The $33,600 Kehler must pay for his overnight gasoline delivery won't be debited from his bank account for a few days. That gives him a little breathing room, time to hold prices steady. Hiking prices too quickly will hurt sales.

"I'll probably change it tomorrow night, at closing," Kehler said. "I'll go up 4 cents."

That will put Kehler at a gross margin of about 20 cents a gallon. After paying credit card fees, labor and rent, Kehler will be lucky to break even on his gasoline sales.

But many times, he loses money selling gas. Kehler, like most other service station operators, relies entirely upon his car repair business for income.

Of course, the plight of retailers is little consolation for drivers.

Mayra Perez said she works two fast-food jobs to help support her family, and gasoline is becoming harder to afford. She said perhaps the government should step in to help ease the burden, possibly by placing price limits on gasoline.

She was filling the tank of her compact car in Miami this past week to the tune of $3.89 per gallon for regular gas.

"This is horrible," she said. "On the weekend, my husband and I use only one car to save on gas.

"But then there's the cost of food, milk, eggs, the rent."

Amazingly, mostly, accurate piece, especially considering it's coming from AP................but then they couldn't resist planting the notion of government control right at the end. Would have been nice if they'd have reminded the readers that the last time that was tried we had allocation and lines at the stations.

lots of stuff to digest in those peices. I say covert to solar, drop demand and let the rest of the world fight over it. I know it would never work, but it makes you feel good for a few seconds!

Most of the gas stations in our area our owned by the same people. If the above statement by the one station owner is correct. The owners in our area must really be stretching their credit. BP {Standard in the past} has at least 6to 10 gas stations that I know of and since he has an oil company by his name he may have more. Another one has at least 20 to 25 in North West Indiana, the people that live around this area will know who the stations owners are the first name of the stations is Family, and the other one starts with Good. It seems like they are doing ok. They keep getting bigger, they all keep putting car washes up and adding on. Depending on which station you go to you could see .10 or .20 it seems like the location, and we can always count on the price going up at least .10 to .20 on the weekends. This is just what I see.

Richard

I think ration coupons would be good (ala WWII).... Seeing as how my "job location" is 20 steps out the back door, I could pick up some extra bucks selling my coupons!!!!! Heck ya, let's do it......Hmmmm. Now where did I put Hillary's phone number??????

Heck, I'd still be running my E-85 on the street, and E-90 at the track..... I do run Shell premium in my lawn mower, but then I have a very small lawn and only used 1 1/2 gals. last summer.....

Personally, I want to see oil at $500 a barrel. That's the only thing that will stop this insane dependence on the worst scourge ever to plague mankind. I would call it Black Death, but that has already been taken.

In the 140 odd years we have been in this headlong rush to use more and more of the liquid poison called petroleum, millions upon millions of people have perished or been rendered incapable of normal function due to the inhalation of the byproducts of combustion of this horrible slime. Many more will die as a result of the changes being cast upon the environment by the burning of this deadly chemical in all its forms.

The higher and higher cost of oil will usher in a new era of engineers, designers, thinkers and seat-of-the-pants mechanics who will design and develop new methods of creating energy on this planet. That's what it takes. When the cost of oil becomes excessive and out of reach, alternatives will begin showing up due to bright people exercising their minds toward a cheaper, cleaner energy source.

When solar was first being investigated (at least when I first became aware of it on a commercial scale in the 70's), the cost of producing a watt of electricity was about $4.00. I read recently of a developer who has a new solar technology that will allow power generation for pennies per watt in a few years. Then there is the wind. In this country, there is a corridor that runs the length of the country just east of the Rockies where the wind blows all the time. This area can and will be dotted with windmills to produce power.

I foresee a time, around the world, where individual families will produce their own energy needs with no dependency on a power grid.

I hope all of you have read about the air motor car being produced abroad. This is the answer to providing transportation without the need to burn anything at all or convert hydrogen to electricity by running it through a catalyst at all. A solar array could generate current to power a compressor to pressurize air storage tanks attached to the vehicle. Currently, with three high-pressure air bottles aboard, the range is 200 miles at 60 mph, but you can bet that as the price of oil increases, so will the range of these air motor cars. I can foresee the car built with a solar array positioned as the entire roof of the car. Anywhere you park it in the sun, the bottles are being refilled. Just think, a completely pollution-free mode of transportation, driven by air and recharged by the sun.

ALASKA’S SECRET OIL RESERVE IS LARGER THAN ANY IN THE WORLD

There is enough untouched oil and gas on the North Slope of Alaska to supply our country for over 200 years, according to the Governor of Alaska! See the Video Click on link: The Energy Non-Crisis

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S SECRET COLORADO OIL DISCOVERY (2 TRILLION BARRELS)

Very recently, the U.S. Energy Department announced the results of a land survey...
It was conducted to determine the official amount of oil a thousand feet deep in the Rocky Mountains...
They reported this stunning news:
We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.
Here are the official estimates:

8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
18-times as much oil as Iraq
21-times as much oil as Kuwait
22-times as much oil as Iran
500-times as much oil as Yemen
More than 2 TRILLION barrels.

Most of this oil is in the form oil shale cost per barrel were as high as $60 per barrel, but now new methods will bring the cost down to as little as $10 per barrel. The term oil shale generally refers to any sedimentary rock that contains solid bituminous materials that are released as petroleum-like liquids when the rock is heated. To obtain oil from oil shale, the shale must be heated and resultant liquid must be captured. This process is called retorting, and the vessel in which retorting takes place is known as a retort.

The Denver Post reports “That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today†. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch said: “The amounts of oil are staggering. Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?†The U.S. Energy Dept. estimates an eventual output of 10 million barrels of oil per day. At that rate, the money flow would be even greater.

Click on Link: About Oil Shale

CANADA’S OIL SANDS CONTAIN MORE OIL THAN SAUDI ARABIA

By conservative estimates, the underground deposits around Fort McMurray hold 1.6 trillion â€" with a "t" â€" barrels of oil, making them the largest lode of hydrocarbons on Earth. Up to 330 billion barrels of the crude here in Canada's oil sands region are recoverable, geologists say. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, possesses 262 billion barrels of proven reserves. Current production in the sands is about 1 million barrels a day, about half of which goes to the USA by pipeline. Production is forecast to rise to 2 million barrels a day by 2010 and 3 million a day by 2015.

LOL...like Uncle Bob sayes ....here we go again,
This is nothing new ....the electric car was around and more popular than the model t......but it got killed off,kinda like what happened 15 years ago.......

66Stage : Free Movies Online

This is a 5 minute pre view...you will need to install veoh tv to watch the full program ,its free....

Originally Posted by techinspector1

Personally, I want to see oil at $500 a barrel.

This would basicly be a death sentence for the wife & I considering our health & shortest doctors trip is about a 50mile round trip. Lets see, right now it costs us about $10 to drive to see one of many of our doctors w/our 20mpg Trailblazer, so using your rate of $500 a barrel it would cost us about $40 to see just this one doctor. Then considering I could possible see 2 of the 5 doctors I have on one day that still doesn't account for the other 3 or the 4-5 the wife has. So for us 2 to see our doctors it could posible cost us over $200 for gas just to see all of our doctors.

This all works great when you're basicly a one income family ..joe

I just wonder what percentage of us has to be in real economic trouble due to high oil prices before we as a nation do something about it ? I haven't heard any solutions coming from any of our presidential candidates,just some stop gap measures to take off some taxes for a short period. Might get them elected,but what does it do for the problem? If there's a 400 year supply of oil here in the US to be had for $60 a barrel,why do we pay so much to import any? Hank

Originally Posted by halftanked

I just wonder what percentage of us has to be in real economic trouble due to high oil prices before we as a nation do something about it ? I haven't heard any solutions coming from any of our presidential candidates,just some stop gap measures to take off some taxes for a short period. Might get them elected,but what does it do for the problem? If there's a 400 year supply of oil here in the US to be had for $60 a barrel,why do we pay so much to import any? Hank

That`s what ive always wondered, why do we buy it, when we have it? What happened to all that oil they got in texas and california? not to mention alaska!

The funny thing is, even though we have oil, refine it locally and ship it out of state, we have the highest gas prices in the nation. I gaurentee that if and when we start drilling our own main source of crude, that gas will not be any cheaper, as other countries will still be paying 135 a barrell of oil, so we will still be paying that price. I imagine it will take decades to see any domestic oil in our cars, and by that time, the cost of the new production facilities will surely be passed onto the end user. Greed, Profit and Dependency will only increase the price of oil. For now only greater production from OPEC will lower the prices, but why do that, when they can milk the gravy train, so to speak. Look at the facts, GW has asked OPEC to raise production twice now, the end result is they won't.
The real solution will be lowering our oil need by becoming more efficient consummers. To this end, when we built our addition to our house we over insulated(not always a great idea!) and tried to incorperate passive solar technology into the design.
I know solar panels don't pay for themselves in their life time, but, the energy that is made from them does exceed the energy used to make them, produces electricity that then can be used for heat, cooling and transportation.
Wind power is popular here too, but it seems that they are less efficient than solar(I don't know this for a fact.) If we all switched to nasty green flourescent light bulbs, we'd save 75% over incondescent light. I for one don't like the sickly light that comes off them, but still use them in parts of the house for reading lights and bathroom and hall lights. Also the porch light.
I truely believe reducing our energy signature, will be the best solution in the long run. Getting high gas milage commuter cars for your commute, when it works for your work situation is also a great idea. Unfortunately alot of this stuff cost money that people don't have now. Car pooling works to lower that monthly gas bill and doesn't cost a thing. But thinking to the future now is also a good idea. Saving towards a better gas milage vehicle instead of a vacation this year and next, seems like a good idea to me.

those 20k windmills i was looking at are looking better all the time..

There's a guy in Fort Worth named Ed Wallace. He has a column every Sunday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a call-in radio show every Saturday morning. His "thing" is all things automotive, or car-related, but he can go off on tangents fairly often, and when he does he deserves attention. It shows him to be what has become an oddity ..... He's a thinker!

Now, I have to say that the Star-Telegram is a McClatchey publication, and as such it never misses an opportunity to give its content an obvious liberal slant, and since it is what we have in this area, I read the damn rag.

And frankly, I hate it.

But ..... Back to Ed Wallace. He wrote a two part article, the first of which ran on May 19 and the second on May 22, dealing with the subject of this thread.

It is lengthy but seems to me to be as straightforward an assessment of the situation as exists. Here, I hope, is a link for it:

ICE, ICE, Baby | Ed Wallace | Star-Telegram.com

And for some reason I can't get a link for the conclusion. darn it. I'll work on it. If I don't get it I'll cut and paste in the whole article.

I caught the suggestion that government should intervene, too, Uncle Bob, and was fast to recall the profound comments by the House's greatest intellect (Maxine Waters, of course) as to what "this Liberal" would do.

Good Lord!

Thanks for the thread, Hotroddaddy,

Jim