It's Here...$4 a gallon Diesel

[gharmann]

It was between $3.05 and $3.39 at the Jersey Shore

 

[psaboic]

Up a dime today to $4.11 a gallon....*sigh* So much for hoping it would drop below $4 again. I agree with what everyone says, this is just bad all the way around. Sure high fuel prices are hurting folks driving huge guzzling vehicles, but their wasteful ways are being felt by EVERYONE in higher fuel prices, food prices, etc....

Sometimes life just ain't fair!

Glenn

 

[Drivbiwire]

And to DBW, many school districts in Wisconsin are facing huge shortfalls every year and the cost of fueling the buses has risin dramatically. Property taxes go up as a result, I guess that's one way of "distributing the cost over a wide area of consumers".

Want cheese with that whine? (just a pun at a Cheesehead not a personal jab at you)

Regarding people wanting more taxes to cover their personal decisions,

The solution is easy regarding your transport issues! Make each family take responsibility for getting their kids to school. Provide a service but that service is paid for by each individual family rather than more taxes!

Solution: Drop the tax, charge a monthly fee for bus service to pick up each child directly to the parents. Each family should be responsible for the transport of their kids to school. The fee structure would be based on a minimum set rate plus a mileage adjustment predicated on the distance from the childs house to school. Use a fuel surcharge to adjust for varying fuel costs thru the year since the bus and driver are generally a fixed cost per year based on contracts and fixed prices of the busses loans. The only variable would be the maintenance of the bus in which this could be factored into the fixed base price.

Want to save more money? The district hedges the fuel, buys enough fuel for each bus at the seasonal low for diesel, Store it, they winterize it and now have a fixed cost thru the year till the next seasonal low. Unlike gasoline diesel can be safely stored. This also allows you to get fuel at deeper discounts with lots greater than 10,000 gallons. A couple tank farms and you recover your costs and save money within 2-3 years. Thats what a private enterprise would do but we aren't talking about one are we?

Problem solved.

Next Democrats are gonna ask for free health care...Econ 101...nothin's free!

DB

 

[JB05]

$3.59 in Cook Co., Il. 20 cents in two days. I'll check out the B11 stop over in DuPage Co. this weekend.

 

[justboo]

Thanks McBrew for your post.

To the one who questioned my use of illegal narcorics and wanted to see the "crazy high record breaking profits" please read below. Take off the blinders fella and stop flaming for no reason. Internet bravery is a horrible disease.

Also you never answered my questions.

Here is what I am talking about. This is in total dollars. I am not talking about margins although I suspect their margins shot up as dramatically as their profits after Katrina. Even if, for example, they were working on a slim 2% margin and are now getting 4%, that is a 100% increase in profit margin. They used Katrina to gouge in many cases and reset prices permanently.

Was it a market correction for years of under pricing? Perhaps but that is not what I am talking about. Whether it be a correction as the dot bomb was or not, it hit my pocket and did I mention, helped these companies to set crazy high record breaking profits. When a single company's revenue is greater then the GDP of all but 25 countries, I'd classify that as crazy high.

Higher Oil Prices Help Exxon Again Set Record Profit

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 2, 2007; Page D01

It was a hard act to follow, but Exxon Mobil has managed quite an encore.
After ringing up the biggest annual profit figure in U.S. corporate history in 2005, Exxon Mobil yesterday announced that it topped that number in 2006. Riding the wave of high crude oil and gasoline prices, the company reported a profit of $39.5 billion, up 9 percent from the year before.

Its revenue of $377.6 billion exceeded the gross domestic product of all but 25 countries.

citation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020100452.html

Big Oil: Another profit record in sight

By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
July 24 2007: 1:50 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- There's rarely been a better time to be a refiner.
In the second quarter, refiners bought crude oil at lower prices and sold gasoline at record high prices. As a result, companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Valero could see record profits when the industry reports earnings this week.

citation: http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/24/news/companies/oil_profits/index.htm

Thank you and goodnight. I will go back to being a lurker instead of contributing what I can to this site.

I just read this on a post today on yahoo news about the stocks tumbling 360points. so the margins you say are also increasing along with the profits statement cant be all that true. Not that I am defending the oil companys I am really jelous at the money they reap in but they are raping us. I think gas is going up due to the horrible exchange rates of our dollar. and our dollar for the first time ever is worth less than the canadian dollar. our econemy is in the pooper and our goverment refuses to admit it.


"Wall Street was also troubled by the day's corporate news. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported third-quarter profit fell 10 percent because of lower refining and chemical margins. Shares of the Dow component dropped $3.49, or 3.8 percent to $88.50."

 

[SmokinTDI]

It just went to 3.09 in Liberty, MO....suburb of Kansas City

 

[diezlpwr]

3.07 at the Hess in Harrison, NJ. i always fill up there cuz they dont even come up to the car anymore and try to do it themselves and get diesel allover the side of the car.

 

[MooseWagen 22]

3.19 in STL MO first of all i think its bull s*** how how mobil is 3.19 a gallon at noon and when i came home from work at 4.30 it was 3.09 if thats not price gougeing then i dont know what is. and as for the comment made for it being 6 to 8 doallars a gallon would seriously hurt me i dont make but 18000 a year. I used to have a Mustang gt that got 15 mpg. that got really got expensive. its easy for people with money to say stop b******* about prices. but im glad now i get 47 mpg

 

[Croberts]

Today RUG jumped 10 cents to $2.99, diesel up 14 cents from $3.24 to $3.38 so about a 40 cents spread here.

 

[Dimitri16V]

so who is betting diesel will be $4 before Christmas ?

 

[MooseWagen 22]

i hope not

 

[andreigbs]

$3.25 in Dunwoody, GA at a Shell I passed by; $3.19 at the QT off Pleasantdale Rd. where I filled up; no ULSD, ugh. $3.15 at the local Shell right at Old P'tree and Braselton Hwy.

 

[TornadoRed]

The consumers in the US will be closer to the real cost of oil, the Dollar drops permitting an increase in sales of US products abroad, helps to reduce the trade imbalance between the US and China, allows Europeans and other foreigners to come here and spend more money...Frankly there aren't many downsides to this (unless you own a 7mpg gas guzzler).

Some of your "pluses" I disagree with. But you are not quite getting the significance vis-a-vis China. This may finally convince the Chinese to revalue the yuan versus the dollar. They've been resisting, but pegging against the dollar is killing them now. Half of China is on diesel rationing, gasoline is also in short supply. That little 10% price increase isn't going to do a thing... but if they let energy prices float then Chinese consumers are going to riot over what could be a 50% price increase or more.

So we have to ask ourselves: do we want a stable Chinese Communist dictatorship? Or something else?

Is there a futures market that lets people bet on whether the 2008 Summer Olympics will really go ahead in Beijing, as planned?

 

[Mark_J]

I work at a refinery as an operator who has no control over the refineries cost of operation or what they sell their final products for. But what I do know is refineries like mine are loosing money because we have to buy oil at $90.00 plus per barrel when a short time ago it was at $50.00 per barrel. Where the oil companies are making their money is from the wells that they drilled years ago when oil was at $20.00 or $30.00 per barrel, but they now can sell that same oil for $90.00 or more per barrel. The higher the price per barrel of oil gets, the richer the Middle Eastern countries and others get. With the price of a barrel of oil almost doubling in the past couple of years, wait until the price of fuel at the pump catches up with that kind of an increase, then you’ll see sticker shock.

Also people seem to forget how much cheaper diesel was when compared to gasoline last summer. Right now in my area diesel is about .25 cents more than gas, but last summer it was as much as .70 cents cheaper (which I do admit I’ve never seen that much of a spread before). But what I am trying to say is it averages out over the course of a year.

One more thing, in the 1st stage of the refining process there is very little difference between stove oil and diesel. But because of stricter environmental laws, diesel has to be refined even more in the Ultra Low Diesel Unit (ULSD) in order to remove the sulfur, but stove oil for home heating still has the sulfur in it. The main reason the price of diesel goes up this time of year is the refineries have to decrease the production of automotive diesel in order to increase the production of stove oil for the millions of homes in the eastern US that burn stove oil to keep warm, but the demand for automotive diesel doesn’t decrease. Remember there hasn’t been a refinery built in the US for over 35 years, and I know this because I work at the last refinery built in the US, and we are over 35 years old. But the demand for fuel in the US keeps rising, but the production hasn’t kept up. We need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil but unfortunately the only way I can see this happening is through higher prices at the pump.

Mark

 

[wjdell]

Well if the price per barrel has not reached the pump - then why has diesel gone up 30 cents gallon in a week here in Central Florida.

 

[Thunderstruck]

How much clearer does it need to become the answer, and the only answer, to this problem is to reduce consumption? This is a problem we can't drill our way out of (and even if we could refinery capacity would limit supply at the pump), and we can't grow our way out with bio fuels.
If there ever was a time for the numb nuts running VW to bring the 70 MPG Polo I was just looking at on VW's UK site, this is it.

 

[iamatt]

B100 Soy $2.83 here
#2 is $2.95 - $3.12 at the pump outside of Houston.

 

[DIESELprogrammer]

there is no way these stations paid more than $3 per gallon...

If you would take the time to actually get to know your fuel vendor, you would know how ridiculous this statement is. Stations around here typically make $.03-.05 per gallon.

I filled the truck up yesterday @$3.67.9 =$130.00 for fillup. It is going up to 3.75.9 there today. Because I take the time to know the people I buy fuel from, I get no surprises. Prices this week are now $3.69.9 - $3.79.9 everywhere.

The highest I have paid is $3.69.9 in the summer of 06 at same station. Looks like that will change soon.

One good this from this is that I am currently looking for a 28’-32’ Class C motorhome. Prices are way down for them!

 

[PDJetta]

so who is betting diesel will be $4 before Christmas ?

It depends on how cold in the northeast it is (heating oil use)

--Nate

 

[DIESELprogrammer]

It is very unlikely that we will see diesel or gasoline below $2 a gallon again.

I think a more realistic statement would be $3 per gallon.

I have thought about selling my TDI also. I started working from home Sept 01, and now drive 100 miles a week instead of 100 miles a day. However, it is still the most cost effective for that one weekly trip to town.

 

[TornadoRed]

Sadly, you are probably right Unless something happens during election year. It went down during the last flurry of elections and right back up. Makes you wonder.

It didn't actually happen that way. In 2004, the price I paid rose from ~$1.60 in the early part of the year, peaking around Election Day at around $2.40.

In 2006 the price was around $2.60 in the early part of the year, and about the same price on Election Day. There was a peak in mid-year, but the drop-off from that peak wasn't enough to convince anyone that "happy days were here again."

 

[Mike_Van]

drwho wrote: 'diesel cars will be totally worthless if these costs rise above gasoline'

Not in my book. I bought a diesel so that I could burn BioDiesel, irrespective of the price. I try to drive as little as possible, and usually don't fill my tank more than once a month. My employer moved closer to where I live, allowing me to commute by bike (5 mi.), so I hope to decrease my fill-up frequency even more.

With oil at $90+/bbl and headed for $125, it seems prudent to reduce my fuel usage. No sense in rewarding the people who profit (from oil extraction, refining, distribution and especially the speculators) more than is absolutely necessary.

 

[sunline]

DBW, DADADA, MikeV and many more are right on. The only way out of senseless waste is to make it hurt. If the trillion dollars or so that is being dumped into a war for oil in Iraq were invested in renewables, efficiencies, etc our environement would benefit, Islamo fascists would have less reason to hate us and we could have ultralight performance vehicles to play with. Even shrubbery concedes we are addicted to oil. Problem is he is addicted to military industrial arrogance.

 

[BioDiesel]

Wanna take it Higher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ig-6f0g55c


BOOM - schaka-lacka-lacka
BOOM - schaka-lacka-lacka



"It went down during the last flurry of elections and right back up. Makes you wonder."

The Decider is from Texas. Whats to wonder about?

 

[TornadoRed]

Islamo fascists would have less reason to hate us...

They don't hate us, they just want what is best for us: that we all accept Allah, that our women cover themselves with veils and burkhas, that we abandon democracy and let mullahs and imams make the decisions that non-clerics are incapable of making. And that America be turned into a minor province of the global Islamic caliphate.

Surely you can't object to that.

 

[TornadoRed]

Diesel prices continue to soar above gasoline, I might as well consider the car worthless... 2 diesel cars will be totally worthless if these costs rise above gasoline.

I will reluctantly agree to take one or more worthless diesel cars off your hands, at no additional charge to you.

 

[Dimitri16V]

If you would take the time to actually get to know your fuel vendor, you would know how ridiculous this statement is. Stations around here typically make $.03-.05 per gallon.

I filled the truck up yesterday @$3.67.9 =$130.00 for fillup. It is going up to 3.75.9 there today. Because I take the time to know the people I buy fuel from, I get no surprises. Prices this week are now $3.69.9 - $3.79.9 everywhere.

The highest I have paid is $3.69.9 in the summer of 06 at same station. Looks like that will change soon.

One good this from this is that I am currently looking for a 28’-32’ Class C motorhome. Prices are way down for them!

your vendor is feeding a pile of BS. I see identical Shell stations here, 1/4 miles apart, their diesel prices differ by 40 cents. and I have seen exxon station charging $ 4.30 but you get a free soda.
did you expect your vendor to admit to gouging ?

 

[Dimitri16V]

They don't hate us, they just want what is best for us: that we all accept Allah, that our women cover themselves with veils and burkhas, that we abandon democracy and let mullahs and imams make the decisions that non-clerics are incapable of making. And that America be turned into a minor province of the global Islamic caliphate.

Surely you can't object to that.

is Russ Limbaugh time again ?

 

[DieselDriver2003]

Northern NJ is around $3.19, it was $2.96 when I filled up last time. I'd like to say I told you so but... OMG!!! Time for a GreaseCar conversion..

Ok, I didn't have a camera with me to take a picture today when I got fuel, but I'm not joking when I tell you that on the SW Washington coast where I live, the three local stations are now charging $4.01 a gallon for #2 Diesel
Glenn

 

[DieselDriver2003]

It's hard to change because many factors has conditioned us indirectly if you're over 40. Anyway, I do not want to type all night but just realize this. Why do some Asian and European countries save more in terms of money, fuel, paper, etc.? Because of many reasons, for one thing, it's the only way. But us, how many times have you gone into a Wendy's or Burger King and grabbed a fist full of napkins, use a few, and throw out the rest? Anyway, think about why we behave the way we do and why it is so difficult to change. Maybe because some group of people want us to waste? More we use, the more money they will make and so on... Maybe we should not buy that Durango or Hummer..

However, the point is to CHANGE the way you do things! Use your fuel more sensibly. Of course, we TDIers already drive vehicles that are pretty efficient, but most of us could drive smarter -- carpool, combine trips, slow down a bit, use public transportation, bike, walk, etc.