quote Originally posted by bzzzted: [QUOTE]Originally posted by 84Bill: Originally posted by AusFiero: hmmmm I paid $1.01 a litre yesterday. It is only getting worse. WOW! thats cheap I'm up to 1.95 for premium 1.74 for reg and it pings my engine to hell and back. Mr. Bill How cheap 1 U.S. Gal = 3.7854 Litres, translation $3.82 3/10 per U.S. Gal!!, excluding exchange of course!

Ok I feel like and Idiot now I forgot he is an Ausi. Guess I should read and comprehend prior to engaging the keyboard. It's all Stimpys fault anyway

[This message has been edited by 84Bill (edited 05-24-2001).]

Why are refineries being at capicity driving gas prices up?

suppose you owned a gas refinery. You can produce 100 gallons of gas if you have unlimited supply of crude oil, and if you run the system 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Normally you wouldnt do that. you might run it 16 hours a day, and have it down for 8 hours a day for maintaince. The cost of refining gas not only includes the crude oil, but the cost of the capitol equipment you have tied up in your facility, and the cost of labor to run it.

In your normal operation you have two customers that buy 30 gallons a day (two gas stations). So you normally product 60 gallons a day, and have two shifts of labor running the place. You have to pay for the equipment and labor from the price you get for that 60 gallons a day you sell.

If you make 100 gallons a day, the max for your system, there is nobody to buy it - so if you want to do that you have to drop the price and sell it to stations taht are not your normal customers.

But if your regular customers tell you they both need 50 gallons a day, you can sell it to them for the normal price - but the capitol cost of the equipment is more or less the same, and you have to put another shift on and pay them the graveyard hours premium, but you still make more profit cause now you pay all your expenses on the 100 gallons a day, instead of 60.

the opposite is also true, if demand drops to 30 gallons a day, you still have to pay for all that equipment, even if its sitting idle for 16 hours a day.

so the best profits come to a factory or business owner when their facility is running at 100% of capacity.

if your customers now want 100 gallons a day each, and you cant supply it to them, what are they gonna do? put signs out on the pumps at 3pm everyday "OUT OF GAS!" No they are gonna go to someone else to buy the extra, and they will have to pay more for it.

so the price at the pump goes up. It basic supply and demand capitolism, but in this case the rarity is not the crude oil, the the refinery capacity that is scarce compaired to demand.

Its not BS - this is how our free market capitolist economy works. When the price is high enough to warrent it, more refineries will be built to take advantage of the demand, and prices will level off or fall again.

The price of gas is so high because we are still willing to pay it. All the other stuff is secondary.
When we have had enough, and quit buying as much, prices will drop. (Unless the government steps in and REALLY mucks things up.)
I feel that electric cars may be a viable solution for some commuters. I could have leased an EV1 through my company for like $250 per month. Installation of the charging system at my home would have been free. Would have gotten a HUGE tax credit. The main reason I didn't was because I didn't have enough room to park it, and because I was willing to pay for the gas.

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Raydar - aka Steve

88 black Formula
88 Duke coupe
88 "wadded up" Formula (parts car)

Ken
All that sounds honky dory, and yes, your example does make sense. Explain THIS to me, though: where do the oil companies' RECORD profits come from? Oil companies (i.e. the gas stations) do not, for the most part, refine their own crude. BUT, THEY are the ones reporting record profits. Coincidence?? I think not. Also, has the demand for gas risen by 30 to 40 % in the last 18 months? NO WAY. In fact, has the demand on refineries risen by 6% IN THE LAST 4 HOURS??? I just found out that since my first post this morning gas prices across town have started going up from 72.9 cents/liter to 78.9 cents per liter. Is there a 6% higher gas demand this afternoon than there was this morning?!?!?!?!?!? I've said it before and I'll say it again: GREED. Yes, SUV's are PARTLY to blame. Not because they're gas guzzlers (and they ARE), but because there are so many people who own them and they're all willing to pay the price. Why do you think GM dealers charge us Fiero owners an arm and a leg for Fiero parts not sold by any other parts stores? Not because their shops are over-loaded producing Fiero parts. It's because we NEED the parts and can't go anywhere else. I just bought a rubber gasket for the trunk for my '87 GT. They want $145 f*cking dollars for a piece of rubber! It's the same with oil companies: you need gas, we have it - now pay up!!!!

You do have a point there Voy,
I can understand that but I think you stumbled on something by accident, since ruber and a KRAPLOAD of other stuff is nothing more than the byproduct of refined crude,
I never looked at it that way. This does look like a case of major greed concidering not only gas but plastics and other such products can bring the oil co's profits up through the cieling and beyond my comprehension. my my if this dont put an interesting twist on things.

[This message has been edited by 84Bill (edited 05-24-2001).]

Im not trying to defend oil companies or anyone else - only want to point out that this is the way it is, and there are other reasons for it besides greed.

for gm parts use this web site whenever you can - you have to find the part number yourself for what you want, but you get the parts for half price:
http://www.gmpartsdirect.com/

I agree with you that its down right annoying to see gas prices go up. Prices are not linear with demand by the way. If there are four beany babies for sale on ebay and only 3 want them, the price will be low, but if 8 people all want those 4, and there is nowhere else to get them at this moment, then they will not sell for twice as much, they will sell possible for 10 times as much.

Once you need something and cant get it - demand exceeds supply, the price takes off - highest bidder wins.

I feel your pain too everytime I tank up - this is one of those things in life where we can only do a little about the unplesant situation. Doesnt do us any good to get totally PO'd about it. If your blood pressure skyrockets the CEO of Exxon doesnt suffer at all, he cant feel a thing.

all we can do for the most part is cough a little harder to come up with the extra $$$. Convincing yourself you are getting screwed only upsets you - it doenst affect anyone else - so why make yourself miserable?

OMG I just looked around my desk and damn near every item from my pen to my shoe soles are derived in some way by RUDE OIL!! holy flippin!!
no "rude" was not a typo

woah! the revelation is quite stunning in scale.

BTW Ken
I understand the ecconomics of it but still is it necessary to burdon the public with the "greed" of the oil companies. especially since it effects our every day lives in a very profound and detremental way. I can see your point when it comes to 2x4's and new housing but not for an essential item like fuel.

[This message has been edited by 84Bill (edited 05-24-2001).]

for me gas prices won't affect my life until
they get over about 3.50-4.00/gal.My SUV gets
about15MPG and my V8 fiero gets about the
same.I make it up by living 3miles from work.
It is fun to listen to the guys with the ford
excursions who live 40 miles from work whine
and cry about greed and big oil companies.

so what you are saying here ken is that they got us by the ba!!s and nothing we can do but pay the piper!, seems like a rather defeatist attitude? I fully understand economics etc, but this situation is completely skewed as although demand maybe has go up even with all the super econo cars and even SUV's are relatively good for the size and weight they are in. the shear price increases can't be justified! Companies operate leaner now then 5 yrs ago or even 20 yrs ago, creating less overhead costs which should be somewhat passed on to consumers. Oil companies, Gas stations , etc... all find a way to boost prices at every turn, Gulf War, Exxon Valdez, Summer, Winter, wind is blowing in at a moderate 3 mph in a south westerly direction! come on already, you are an American right?, remember when America wanted out from British rule? History 101, not saying we go to war, but obviously the larger force can be beaten! in the end consumers need to be a part of what dictates price not just told here is what i have take it or walk! consumers create the need and demand

"remember when America wanted out from British rule? "

geeze! how old do you guys think I am?! ;)

that is my point, even if someone does have you over the (oil) barrel, if there is nothing you can do about it, then there is nothing you can do about it!

If life isnt fair then getting all upset and angry cause its not like we think it should be doesnt hurt anyone but ourselves, cause in the end you are still gonna have to put your credit card in that fuel pump and pay the $1.80 or whatever, whether you like it or not.

You cant control how other people treat you, and you cant stop others from taking advantage of your situation from time to time.

all you can control is your response, you attitude, and your mental state.

Breath in, breath out, put your card in the pump, and say "someday people will look back on use and think - how could they live with those gas burning internal combustion vehicles?"

and thank God you at least got to drive a car at all - what a drag it must have been to live 200 years ago.

quote Originally posted by bzzzted: so what you are saying here ken is that they got us by the ba!!s and nothing we can do but pay the piper!, seems like a rather defeatist attitude? I fully understand economics etc, but this situation is completely skewed as although demand maybe has go up even with all the super econo cars and even SUV's are relatively good for the size and weight they are in. the shear price increases can't be justified! Companies operate leaner now then 5 yrs ago or even 20 yrs ago, creating less overhead costs which should be somewhat passed on to consumers. Oil companies, Gas stations , etc... all find a way to boost prices at every turn, Gulf War, Exxon Valdez, Summer, Winter, wind is blowing in at a moderate 3 mph in a south westerly direction! come on already, you are an American right?, remember when America wanted out from British rule? History 101, not saying we go to war, but obviously the larger force can be beaten! in the end consumers need to be a part of what dictates price not just told here is what i have take it or walk! consumers create the need and demand

Yeah but that requires effort and thought by John Q Pub and since most people would just rather complain then take to the streets on such issues not to mention it's not going to be a quick solution and generaly speaking John's attention span is really really short these days. There needs to be some kind of ralling issue and direction on how to attack the enemy because this enemy is EVERYWHERE so I think I will stop buying pens. but that will only hurt the pen maker Gas I need I have to buy it. The only way around that is to go to the cheapest place and get the cheapest gas but when your on E your going to either STOP now and get gas or Stop down the road and call someone to go 10 miles out of the way to get you

I suddenly feel closed in, like I'm in a trap and there is no real short term solution but
I do get the cheaped premium gas there is and I think I'll set my timing back to 8 deg and run regular again just to make a point. but you know the gas Co's already have compensated to that manover.

Even if you go chasing lower gas prices you still lose in the end. There is a BJ's 7 miles from my house. and they sell gas to members for 10 cents less than anywhere else.

so I drive 14 miles and save a dollar on a ten gallon tank of gas, not a bad deal, right?

14 mile round trip, average speed is 40, it takes me about 20 minutes to drive there and back - I do it three times and I have saved $3 for an hours worth the driving.

$3 an hour for my time?! not worth it.

but it gets worse: It really costs 30 cents a mile or more to drive a car altogether (14 miles of wear and tear is 14 miles worth) comes out to 14 * .3 = $4.20!!

I have to put $4.20 worth the usage on my car to save $1!!!

dont waste your time going around looking for the lowest gas prices - you are only fooling yourself! its not worth it. At $2 a gallon gas is still dirt cheap compaired to the rest of the costs of driving your car.

If you are going to BJ's anyway, ok stop and tankup. But if you go out of your way, even a few miles, you are wasting your time and money, you just dont realize it.

quote Originally posted by Ken Wittlief: Even if you go chasing lower gas prices you still lose in the end. There is a BJ's 7 miles from my house. and they sell gas to members for 10 cents less than anywhere else. so I drive 14 miles and save a dollar on a ten gallon tank of gas, not a bad deal, right? 14 mile round trip, average speed is 40, it takes me about 20 minutes to drive there and back - I do it three times and I have saved $3 for an hours worth the driving. $3 an hour for my time?! not worth it. but it gets worse: It really costs 30 cents a mile or more to drive a car altogether (14 miles of wear and tear is 14 miles worth) comes out to 14 * .3 = $4.20!! I have to put $4.20 worth the usage on my car to save $1!!!

Well at least your not giving that 3.oo to the oil co's. lets see if everyone did that in philly alone Population of several million we'll say 1/4 dont drive so were talking a few million dollars a week here. Thats not chicken feed thats cash they don't have. that will make me happy besides wear and tear is realitive to a number of factors.

[This message has been edited by 84Bill (edited 05-24-2001).]

Just one more little rant to throw into this mess. And this is not a complete defense of the oil companies. (Why do prices jump min of .10c a gallon just before a holiday?)
But oil companies make more than just gas.
Now throw in Calif who's voters said that they were not going to pay more than x for their utilities regardless of demand. Their demand for elec has jumped more than 100% in the last 10 years yet they don't like prices to go up and they wont allow more plants to be built in their pristine state. (Build them somewhere else that has less electoral votes than us) Now these tards have an energy shortage that affects the entire country and they want the feds to step in and do the same thing for the entire country. price caps.. So instead of a big problem in CA it will be a huge prob for the entire country.
Guess what if you say that you are only going to pay x for 100kwh to your own power companies and then demand that everyone else who has tried to expand to meet demand meet your price.. I'd tell you to get stuffed.
Sorry had this rant building for some time.
and we can blame the entire gas price thing on Californians since nobody likes them anyways. bunch of tree hugging hippies.

now where did I leave that Nomex

Nice rant
How much money will it take to buy enough sawzall blades to cut Cali off the US mainland?

Ken
You're right. Getting upset is NOT good for the health. But getting involved in some way, I think is necessary. If people didn't do anything almost 50 years ago, maybe the whole world would speak German now (and I love their chocolates, BTW). If everyone does their little part, maybe we CAN send a message. I only buy gas from discount stations now-a-days. I ESPECIALLY boycott the 2 main ones in Canada (as previously mentioned). All of you down there should all pick one or two oil companies to discriminate against and see what happens. I think it's worth a try.

REMEMBER THE EXXON VALDEESE? someone has to
pay for it!

Greetings,

One thing that has been mentioned or if it was I missed it, is that the oil companies do not care about the US market for oil/gas.
They do not make any money off of us yet compared to other countries.

You have to remember that all oil companies will sell to the highest bidder and the US is not one of them. In actuality there is plenty of fuel, but not for the US. Other countries are paying more per barrel than the US is and oil companies see $$ i.e huge quarterly profits. This also creates a "shortage" as the oil companies may say. But tha shortage is created by the oil companies themselves by not selling more barrrles here.

Just thinking about this creates a cruel never ending loop that has the oil companies winning no matter what we here in the US may do i.e boycott, etc.. So until we are paying as much as the other countries for their fuels, prices will continue to rise and then will cap off when we are at what others are paying. Unless the government gets involved and to enforce exporting of our own oil, we are helpless to do anything but suffer.

Rich

Big problem up here in Canada is when gas goes up, it will go up say 5 or 8 cents a LITRE. Multiply that by 4.5(imperial gallon)and it gets pricey fast. In the States when it goes up say 10 cents a gallon its just 10 cents and not 10 cents x 4.5

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Darryl Martin
1985 GT

quote Originally posted by Uaana: Their demand for elec has jumped more than 100% in the last 10 years yet they don't like prices to go up and they wont allow more plants to be built in their pristine state. (Build them somewhere else that has less electoral votes than us)

Heard on the radio this morning that 59% of the Californians surveyed are now not opposed to building nuclear power plants in California.
I guess environmental impact goes right out the window when it's you who are sitting at home in the dark.

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Raydar - aka Steve

88 black Formula
88 Duke coupe
88 "wadded up" Formula (parts car)

quote Originally posted by RichLeBlanc: Greetings, One thing that has been mentioned or if it was I missed it, is that the oil companies do not care about the US market for oil/gas. They do not make any money off of us yet compared to other countries. You have to remember that all oil companies will sell to the highest bidder and the US is not one of them. In actuality there is plenty of fuel, but not for the US. Other countries are paying more per barrel than the US is and oil companies see $$ i.e huge quarterly profits. This also creates a "shortage" as the oil companies may say. But tha shortage is created by the oil companies themselves by not selling more barrrles here. Just thinking about this creates a cruel never ending loop that has the oil companies winning no matter what we here in the US may do i.e boycott, etc.. So until we are paying as much as the other countries for their fuels, prices will continue to rise and then will cap off when we are at what others are paying. Unless the government gets involved and to enforce exporting of our own oil, we are helpless to do anything but suffer. Rich

Yeah this is true, but countries like england who pay 4 dollars a gallon for gas, dont use near as much gas as america does. By far USA uses more gasoline than any country in the world. I remember when I was a kid, and gas was 86 cents a gallon, I would ride my bike to the gas station to buy 2 and a half gallons of gas, some for the mower, and some for the go cart. Within the next few summers it went over a dollar, nearly put me out of the mowing business, then up to 1.15!!! thats ubsurd. Cant hardly afford to drive my go cart anymore.
One more thing that is stupid and has me bothered. They say they are taking additives out of the gas, Like MTBE, to reduce polution, and then they say it costs more money to manufacture, WTF, they take ingredients out, and it costs more? Something is not right here.

When it comes to gas, it is supply and demand...
There is enough supply and demand in the US to keep the prices lowered, compaired to the rest of the world...
But if everyone were to add 2 or 3 gallons of alcohol to their tank at every fill up, then the gas companies would notice!!!
So would the government, as tax revinue would also go down...
Nice thing about alcohol, it is a renuable resource, and can be made at home, if needed...
But it sure is a lot les expensive than gas!!!
crash...

You can't get mad at the stores that offer the gas at such high prices, it usually isn't their fault. I work at a store here in town and we only make a few cents (like 3 or so) a gallon on gasoline. It all traces back to the refineries, and tax. Here in the US somewhere around 40¢ alone is tax. The only places that make an actual profit on fuel would be the big chains that have their own refineries (Chevron, etc.).

The thing that irks me the most is the fact that we can do NOTHING about it! There was a 1 day boycott to protest rising gas prices a while ago, but what good does that do? All that did was cause more to be bought the day before and after. Completely pointless.

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Never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience

The way I see it with Australian fuel prices it wont be long before you buy it in the supermarket in 2 litre bottles and it will be dearer than Coca Cola. Has anyone done a conversion to run a car on coke yet?

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When I was young I spent 80% of my money on Women, Gambling and Alcohol. I guess I wasted the rest.

If anyone is still upset over gas prices then its time to really put things into perspective:

typical car that gets 30mpg is putting out about 5 to 8 HP at 60mph. Lets say its 5HP and be optimistic. In one hour it goes 60 miles so it burns 2 gallons of gas.

So 5HP of output of energy takes 2 gallons of gas. At $2/gallon thats 4 bucks.

A human being doing manual labor, cutting wood, pushing a lawn mower, riding a bike at a good steady clip, would be hard pressed to put out half a horsepower of energy for 1 hour straight, maybe a third could be sustained by a person in good health.

So for manual labor to produce 5HP of energy it would take 15 people (5HP divide by 0.333). 15 people working at minimum wage ($4/hr?) is $60 bucks an hour.

$60/$4 = factor of 15! so using gasoline at $2 / gallon is 15 times more effecient than using manual labor.

this may sound like a weird way of looking at things, but it points out the physics, engineering factors, and economics of how much energy is stored in a gallon of gasoline - this is why gasoline is still king - no other fuel or energy source can knock it off its pedistal for energy / volume or energy / weight or energy / dollar.

For the last 100 years we have totally lost sight of what an incredible energy source gasoline is. Even at $2/gallon its dirt cheap.

Dont believe me? you start at one end of a football field with a push lawn mower, Ill start at the other with the 48" 12HP sears 1964 riding lawnmower I got 6 years ago for $25 at a garage sale.

You start at one end of a pile of logs with an axe or handsaw, Ill start at the other with a chainsaw and pnumatic log splitter.

You start out from LA on a bicycle and Ill take off from NYC in my fiero.

lets see who wins in any of these tests.

Its like we use to be able to feed our familys for a week for 1 dollar, and now it cost $2 a week, and everyone is screaming they are being ripped off!!! Its practically free energy!

how many hours do you have to work to earn the money to fill up your gas tank, 1, 2, 3 hrs??

how long would it take you to do what your car can do on a full tank of gas? about 15 times as long or more.

anyway you look at it, gas is still a bargan - its still dirt cheap!

Brisk walk..............................Anyone?