Add to that the economy in China is booming and that their oil consumption
is up by 33% in the last year alone, demand is way up on the world market.
We have not built a new refinery in the US since 1976. We had twice the
capacity for refining in 1976 that we do now and yet our demand is also
twice what it was then and thus you have a shortage of gasoline along with
world supply and demand. Anwar, we miss you...
Rascal
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net
[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net] On Behalf Of Gary Hedlin
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 9:51 PM
To: dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net
Subject: Re: DML: Today's gas prices
On 5/18/04 8:40 PM, in article opr7736piewzx09r@mail.comcast.net, "droo"
<03dakotacc4.7_4x4@comcast.net> wrote:
> The point being made with the comparison to the bottled water is that
> gasoline in the US is incredibly cheap.
>
> I just read an article in National Geographic about the oil supply etc
etc.
> In 1981 the price of a 42 gallon barrel of crude oil was equal to $70 US
in
> today's money. I definately think there is something very screwed up about
> the current price per gallon. The current price per barrel is around $40
> now. Which is where it was back in 91. However the price per gallon of
> gasoline wasn't nearly as high as it is now.
>
It's not so much the price of crude oil, its what it takes to make it gas.
You couple the high demand with a number of oil refineries shutting down for
maintenance, and you have exactly what were seeing now...and have seen in
the past. But whats really driving prices up is purely speculation with
respect to Iraq and other matters in that region. If the whole Mideast is
unstable, than our oil supplies are in question too.
I'm afraid we'll continue to see high prices because NOW they know what the
market can TRULY bear and will set pricing accordingly. If they know we'll
pay $3 a galon, $2.49 doesnąt sound like a bad price!
-- Gary Hedlin www.garyhedlin.com (under construction)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 01 2004 - 10:59:12 EDT