Oil today is now selling at over $68.00 per barrel sorry to say[:(]
Gee whiz, now there’s a big surprise.
And look at all the new full-size pickups coming out of Japan all of a sudden. Where have they been for the past six years!!? I can still fill my Corolla for CDN$42 from vapours to gurgling. It took that much to get my needle to the half-full mark on the Tundra I unloaded last July. And, it lasts twice as long in the Corolla.
Really, though, what is going on with the big SUV’s and trucks being shipped to dealerships? It would seem to me that the only entities who could get away with running them these days are individuals who were able to purchase them outright (no loans), or businesses who can write off them and their operating costs.
Scares me, let me tell you. I actually wonder if even my Corolla will become a liability in the next couple of years.
From my local paper this morning, an AP story with the headline: Biofuel drive may keep gas pricey.
The gist of the story is that due to the push for biofuels, oil companies are cutting back on plans to expand refineries, which could keep gas prices high for years…
I have set aside one car for in-town use only and fill that tank only once every three months if that, instead of weekly.
The other car performs very well each week with a strict mileage allocation between work and other needs for the week. There is enough room in my budget to support 7 dollar/gallon gas and still maintain our weekly use with no reduction in mileage.
We are investigating oppertunity with employment right here in town with a commute total of 70 miles a week instead of 300 and should we land that job we really would not care at all what the cost of gas is. (Not to mention a 15% income increase.)
My only worry is getting gasoline for the car but Arkansas has several pipelines from different places along the Gulf that ships gasoline so… were good.
Bottom line, our home has done everything possible. So, let them charge what they will for gas.
As far as the bio fuel, I am afraid that if we converted the entire availible farming of our crops to create fuel with none left over for food, we still wont have enough.
Put money from pile A into pile B. Wait…pile A is too low, so take pile B and refill. Wait…pile B is too low, so take pile A and refill. Repeat until [banghead]
The Nigerians are not producing their 600,000 barrels of oil, thus the price went up today. Nigeria produces about 1% of daily worldwide consumption (86 million barrels/day). The spike in oil demand is basically due to China’s increased usage.
Gasoline prices here are being influenced (at this time) more on the refinery capacity rather than oil prices. Cracking capacity is very tight.
Another issue which is rearing it’s ugly head is (new term) “ag-inflation”. Food costs are being driven up due to increased acreage of corn and soybeans going for ethanol and bio-diesel. With corn prices high, due to ethanol demand, corn based foods (beef, poultry, pork) are rising as are dairy prices.
A side effect of this is that more and more acreage is being used for corn, thus soybean and even wheat prices are higher as more farmers more corn and less beans and wheat. Looks like Montana farmers could enjoy very high prices this year for their wheat!
Also, as ag commodity prices increase, food processors are not only passing along the increased foodstock price increases, but also improving margins.
It is very feasible we will see a more direct relationship between energy commodity prices and ag commodity prices in the future.
As this “ag-inflation” begins to affect costs to the consumer, no doubt the Fed will see fit to either keep the interest rates as is, or increase them…it is their primary function to keep inflation in check. Meanwhile, Joe and Betty MiddleclassAmericans are finding not only energy prices increasing, but now food, plus their refi of their mortgage will be significantly higher, if they had an adjustible rate mortgage with a balloon that is due.
Gee, if suddenly feels like 1976 all over again.
Oh, happy days.
ed
Yahoo posted a small article the other day where there is a 50 dollar credit card limit on single gas purchases for Visa and 75 dollar limit for Mastercard.
Apparently these limits apply when you attempt to fill up and pay at the pump itself and have to cross over several seperate purchases to complete a fill up across two or even three credit cards.
These limits dont apply to the people that walk inside and present the card. There is apparently an increasing number of credit purchases being noticed as people run into the pre-set limits and get out more cards to finish the fill up.
We fight to have debt at zero, zip, nada, sorry, not here etc… and the idea of credit card companies racking up 14% interest or whatever charges made on gasoline that has long been burned up by the auto is beyond me.
Makes me wonder how much debt is sitting on wall street that is actually made up of food, gas and other consumables that are already used up? How much more can we do this before it breaks citibank, mastercard etc…
Here is the source of this article:
A Diesel-engine is inherently more fuel-efficient than an Otto-engine. (It is more expensive to manufacture, too.) So, if you have to buy a new car, take a close look at the diesels. There are a lot of models on the market. The expensive hybrids are only an option if you often travel in a stop-and-go-mode, i.e. in large cities.
I’ve never heard of this. I used my Visa debit card at the PatP station near my house for mine and my fiancee’s car yesterday, back to back purchases. Total was $110 between the two vehicles. Hmm…
I use debit but under the credit mode to get the points. But I think the limits apply only to pure credit cards. A review of the article indicates that credit card companies want to limit thier liability.
Here in the milwaukee area the prices have settled right around 2.92 a gallon which is not bad and. It took just over 28.50 to fill my tank on my new grand am which is not to bad my other car. Would take between 32 and 35 to fill from empty to full.
Were it not for the weather that went through this afternoon, I would have had six consecutive days of bicycling to and from work (actually, I came about two miles short of making it). My wife and I use one car, both have jobs, and we have gotten by without filling the tank since before we got out to Rochelle a week ago Saturday (five days last week we didn’t use the car at all). Tomorrow’s the day for gas.
Saw that, and our local paper was blabbing-on about one of the two coal conversion plants here. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_6165392
Like ethanol, might make more fuel , but won’t make it cheaper or as combustably efficient
Coal-to-liquids beats biofuels hands down in terms of relative efficiency, but of course petroleum refinement is still the most efficient way to get motor fuels. It’s funny, but that one guy who opined his comment at the bottom of the Denver Post story has it completely backward. With nuclear power commercially viable, we really don’t need to combust coal for future electricity needs, but we do need to utilize our available domestic hydrocarbon sources (e.g. coal, oil shales, tar sands) for transportation fuels. It makes more sense to use coal for conversion to transportation fuels than it does to grow crops for transport fuel or to use coal for generating electricity.
Coal-to-liquids is akin to an “Extreme Hydrocarbon Makeover” (Ty Pennington, we are ye?), while oil to fuels is more like a modification to the hydrocarbon molecule. In that vein, biofuels is more akin to tearing down a fine house and sticking a trailer in the lot.[;)]
BTW - The reason the oil companies are cutting back on plans to build new refineries is due more to the pending loss of the Bush tax incentives than it is on biofuel poliferation. Building a new refinery has a huge up front cost as well as huge potential environmental liability, same as for
…If the oil co’s. refrain from building more refineries to keep gasoline prices high, let our government build as many as we need…They should be able to get clearance in environmental regs., etc. and it sure sounds like a money making business so the government should make money in so doing business…Contract it out in a proper manner to civilian enerprise but not under the oil co. control.
Someone has to start the ball rolling in doing something or we’ll continue to pay sky high prices because the oil co’s. have all the controls.
We’ve not fared very well under either political party on oil prices, so no matter which one is there I doubt it will be the cure.
…Here in Muncie today I’ve witnessed gas as low as 2.89 / gal…Down in Indy it was 2.81…!! We must be on the edge of a raise right around the corner.
A few weeks ago it was as high as 3.49, so look out…This is really getting strange.
Neither party may be the cure, but one of the two is quite inclined to start rolling the ball you have suggested. Hugo Chavez is rolling that same ball. You have to ask yourself if gas prices are high because oil companies refuse to build refineries or if prices are high because certain political forces make it financially unattractive to build refineries.
Apparenetly the oil companies are not adjusting the cost of gas for temperature, there is some law-suiting going on in different states including my own.
I’ll see if I can find that link but basically gas evaporates over 60 degrees in hot weather and should cost less per gallon.
I heard that story too. I thought it was saying that the fuel density goes down with increase in temperature, thus less btu per gallon. I would be very suspicious about a report that blames hot weather (climate) for high gas prices, if you know what I mean.