Juan.©amaney

click on one of our sponsors! OR REMOVE ADS

Okay so back in may 29'th diesel was 5.09 and gas, if memory serves me, was still around 4.03. I remember this because I posted it on another forum I frequent/manage. In that same thread I posted over there, some people stated gas companies only make pennies on the gas etc and that they aren't messing with prices at the pump *cough*bullshit*cough*

Today....I go to gas up. Gas is 4.32 a gallon for 87. I'm like, fuck it why bother complaining, I can't take the bus to where I need to go, I already don't drive too much for fun, just take it in the ass and thank God I still have a job that allows me to fill up.

That's when I saw diesel at the gas station accross the street was 4.89. So...wait a minute, back in May 29th, diesel was more expensive than it is now and gas was cheaper than it is now? Supply and demand laws and even the good old peak oil argument don't even fit the explanation...Anyone care to take a stab at why this is so?

___________________________________________

michaeljohn

Diesel has been dropping lately. Traditionally, it is less than normal gas, but not lately. There have been rumors of nationwide truck strikes if it tops $5.00 per gallon.

___________________________________________

Krasch

Gouging on the behalf of the gas companies perhaps? Same reason they try to claim it's the price of crude when gas conveniently goes up every Friday and back down after the weekend. Because they don't want to admit that it's really completely arbitrary otherwise the government would have a lot stronger excuse to actually listen to the populace and DO SOMETHING about the gouging...

ddoubleez

You will see a rocky plateau of prices at the pump and on the market......

You will see oil dip down to as low a 80 dollars, and when you do, invest in futures, because this will be very temperory.... Soon in the future it will reach 300, before markets crash for the last time...

You have driving seasons..... Between thanksgiving and x-mas you see a spike, b/c of holiday travel by car and plane..... You also see this at spring break to memorial day(which just passed).... This is supply and demand at work......

The tread is a downward for production and I hope you understand that this is the 4th year in a row that global markets have NOT increased production in spite of everything we are trying to do to reverse the trend.....

I am not kind when speaking of energy companies, but you will never hear me say they are price fixing..... The energy markets make less the same percentage of profit at 125 dollars a barrel as they did when it was 20, give or take a percent or two...

You have not watched any of the films or lectures I perscribed to you, because everyone of them have explained this.....

Crude awakening is now on the netflix top 50, 5 years ago, people laughed at me when I showed a movie like that...... Check it out...........



FYI, Houston area news is warning people not to run their a/cs low all day, because we do not have the avalible excess natural gas to meet the demand and we will see rolling brown outs........ Can you tell me, when we have the largest solar supplied energy of any state and I am paying record prices for electricity, why market forces are not making enough electricity available??? Just courious.......

Krasch

Good try, but that doesn't explain why diesel was costing more than gas and now is less despite the fact that BOTH are products of crude.

You're missing the forest for the trees. While the raw price of crude may be some influence on the general cost of fuel, it doesn't explain the trends of the prices at the pumps. That's gouging, plain and simple.

ddoubleez

Yes it does.... More people driving the higher the price...... More people using fuel = more demand..... Demand increases without supply increase, there is a increase in price.....

And if you are somehow getting that this is a thread about compairing the type of fuels and their fuel prices, you will have to help me see that.... I missed it somewhere....


If you are courious about the difference in # 1, # 2, # 3, # 4, #5 and # 6 fuel oils, I would gladly explain them to you..... We can go into sulfur content, standard changes areomatics and a number of things.... And yes all the above fuel oils have very different processing, cracking and refining steps and are subject to price increases on a case by case basis......

If any illegal price manipulation is going on we've seen no evidence of it. The EIA cites other factors, chiefly high "worldwide demand" not only in the U.S., but also in Europe, China and India. In Europe, for example, diesel-powered automobiles have been outselling those with gasoline engines in recent years. According to the European Union's most recent economic report, diesel autos accounted for 53.3 percent of all new registrations in 2007, a huge increase from the 13.8 percent share recorded in 1990. That's several million new diesel-consuming vehicles every year.

FYI, after deregulation in the early 80's there has never been a time that oil companies have not spent more money, than now, on r&d, exploration and refinement.............

Juan.©amaney

you guys are bringing out some great topics here, but try not to divert too much.

I'd like to know how independant the price of diesel is from the price of gasoline. Maybe even go as far as to break down the prices of petroleoum products and why gasoline prices tend to fluctuate more than other petrol products.

___________________________________________

michaeljohn

I think my post left something out. What I was meaning to say was that the price gouging took place against diesel fuel starting a few months back. This affected trucking the most. Once the economic effects of this were known, (Could truckers survive and how this affected retail prices with added delivery costs), they could keep the price from rising further. Raping normal gasoline users might not have flown since that's almost everyone who uses it. Now that oil per barrell is going up, gasoline is catching up to the unfair price of diesel.

___________________________________________

Krasch

Another good try, but no it still doesn't.

Since May 29th everyone went out and bought diesel vehicles? Somehow I don't think so. As a general trend, sure, but not in that short a time frame.

There's a huge difference between what is or should be illegal price gouging, and what can be proved. They can spew all the bugle oil they want as some ridiculous excuse, and we all know it's bogus. But it's another thing entirely to get a court to actually do something about it.

It's price gouging, plain and simple. And the courts and governments look the other way because it brings in copious amounts of taxes.

fmb

Recently, the demand for gasoline decreased for the first time since 1979. This should reduce the price, if we're looking only at the supply and demand curve.

I say a large part of the increase is from our own capitalist desires. The number of persons pushing cash into oil futures is staggering. With the money comes the desire not to lose any.

Also, the other day on MSNBC, the head of BP was saying the cost of oil per barrel should be around $80. Hell, he's buying and selling the stuff.

Any other reasons why the costs are where they are??

Today, gasoline is at its highest in my area: $3.95/gallon!!

canu

$3.89 to $4.02 in one day :(

ddoubleez

So you are trying to tell me that there is a conspiracy on price fixing that the courts can not do anything about, because the prices of two totally different fuels are preforming differently and even though that are processed at two different types of refineries now, this somehow is your evidence... Each fuel has a different type of demand placed on it for different times of the year, but because there are not fluctuating the same it proves price fixing????????!!!!!!!!!!!! Apple juice went up more than orange juice yesterday, should we take them to congress and see what they have to say about it?

You do understand that regular gas, in the us, is subsidized through the fuel companies and also the corn is subsidized as well.... You also know that this is corn season, and therefore there is more ethanal avalible that goes into all regular gasoline here, but not diesel....

You do also understand that those that increase their driving for holiday, use regular and not diesel..............

And to clarify my point on the demand on diesel vehicles, it was to explain why diesel has been cheaper, from time to time, in the past, but is no longer the case..... In addition, people do no understand here that fuel diesel runs the economy here (which grows faster than the population ages) and therefore the demand for diesel is out pacing the need for regular gas at the pump.... In addition, the diesel is the car of choice in the other hemisphere and in south America.. Therefore globally the demand for the diesel car and fuel has outpaced the demand for regular gas and regular gas cars.... This has stressed refining capacity on a fuel that just had a standards change, from 500 ppm to 15 ppm of sulfur.... Sulfur is also the lubrication in diesel, so they have had to develop and add lubricants to the new diesel, which also effects price dramatically...

Lastly, the refineries here, are setup and can not be changed without a huge cost to consumers, to produce about 2 times the amount of regular gasoline as they do diesel.....

And another way to look at your argument is that the government here and in Canada get their taxes per volume not per dollar... If the oil companies price fix and people look to purchase less fuel, the government and oil companies loose out.... This is illogical.... Price hikes also bring competition and will cause the government to look into changing who they subsidize, which the oil companies do not want either.....

Krasch

Soooo close, but like a poor marksman you keep...missing...the target (William Shatner moment over...)

Diesel (not counting the less common and newer variants like biodiesel or GTL diesel) are hydrocarbon mixtures derived by a fractional distillation of crude oil, as is gasoline. So we're not talking about apple juice and orange juice. A much better analogy would be apple juice and apple cider prices going in different directions when the price of apples themselves is going up.

You talk about people looking to purchase less fuel so the companies lose out. Well that would be great IF it really happened in quantity. The sober reality is that in North America we are a culture of car drivers, because in many cases other methods either can't efficiently get you where you're going, or because they fail to be effective for some other reason. Sure we could all drive Vespas, but try that with a family of four or more, a week's load of groceries and other items, and you quickly realize you need a larger vehicle, like a car or SUV.

The hikes don't bring competition, because all the companies realize that if customers will pay the higher price, which they will BTW, then they all can be making those greenbacks. One raises prices and people still pay, the others follow suit in minutes so that they too can make the extra profit. They have us over a barrel, somewhat literally, and they know it. And the government isn't going to care enough to really change things because they make a whack of money any way you slice it.

For example, the municipal government here in Toronto has outlawed smoking in public establishments, the provincial government has had all stores remove their "power walls" of cigarettes, or at least put them behind opaque doors. All level of government know that the stuff is bad for us, yet they give only lip service to really solving the problem, all because of those lovely taxes. It's pretty much the same way with fuel costs... It's not in their interest to make the companies reduce the price at the pumps when they get all those taxes from it. And the more we pay, the more they get.

joerockhead

I now blame this Jackass! - Thomas Petrie of Merrill Lynch

___________________________________________