Gas prices - OUCH!

[Mr Cuda]

Last year I drove 30,000 miles. This year, on target for slightly less.
Tank empty? I fill it.
At outlying stations,  gas is $4.85 and diesel is $5.65.
I am currently using all I can, as I like to drive and my cars are fun.

I read the book "The Prize" 15 years ago.  The prediction is gas will once again be a waste product, as it was originally.  They pumped the gasoline into pits and burned it to get rid of it..  Now they are burning it to make electricity,  I read 8% of power generation is gas, 20% natural gas.

Gasoline  inventories are at an all time high, but diesel is running low.
They cannot crack more  crude to get diesel,  because they have no place store the light volatiles  (gasoline), that they have to produce to make the full spectrum from a barrel of crude.
Price of gas will come down right into mid term elections,  and someone will take credit for it,
In our area in1982 , a gallon of gas was $1.48 for super, and a house was $65-80k.
Now ,a house is $850-1mil for a cheap house,  and gas is $4.85.
Gas has not kept up, and they are taxing the crap out of it.
I believe locally it's. 90 cents a gallon in tax.

For a real price shock compare what I paid for my first Cuda to today.  340, drive it home for $500


https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WGTSTUS1&f=W

The next big usage for gasoline will be power generation in the southwest,  as nuclear and coal are out. Hydro power is running out. No water soon for glen canyon and Hoover to make power for California.
Clean gas to the rescue! Then more diesel will  be available to move goods by truck and train.
It's time to abandon California and

[worthywads]

US oil production is still way down from 2019-2020.  The oil companies are happily not producing more oil and keeping prices high.  That's how markets are manipulated.

[JH27N0B]

I think oil companies do better than 4-6% profit. CVX at todays price still has a dividend yield of 3.48%. The dividend payout and share price appreciation should help a long way to offset gas spending. Don't forget a good % of the price you pay is in taxes.

Sadly I don't have a bunch of shares of CVX like I do in those techs I cited. But I like their dividends! My investments have given me better % increases in dividends every year than my engineering career in dirty thankless manufacturing ever has, which is nice.   
Here is some real world data to counter those who get get all their wisdom ( ) from CNN and grandstanding politicians mugging for the TV cameras.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012015/what-average-profit-margin-company-oil-gas-drilling-sector.asp
So yes, oils very high for this brief period in history but in my several decades owning some oil companies their profit margins are not anything to write home about.  I like big dividend yields, that is why I've invested in them, not because they are high profit growth stocks.
Tech is all over the place, as there are so many players, but among big long time companies I've been invested in, their profits seem to have been in the 20-35% range.
https://www.reuters.com/assets/curtainMainContentLoader?view=RSM-US-Curtain-MainContent-Sector-Technology
I'll hang up now and wait for CNN and Schumer and the like to blame the tech companies greed for our current spiraling out of control inflation. 

[Mr Cuda]

Coming off the pandemic when the primary consumer stayed home and didn't drive their gas consuming cars, refineries had to store excess product.
On top of that, industry kept humpin along using up the diesel.
Refineries had to slow down production because they couldn't move the waste gas out of the system at any price,  so they kept prices up to make as much as they could,  while they could.
Refer to my link of gas inventory,  I should post the diesel inventory.
Here is the barrel breakdown to support my wild claim

[7212Mopar]

Gasoline and diesel have shelf life so refineries process crude based on demand and short term storage.  There is also cost factors on transport and storage of crude. Likely there are bunch of guys out there looking and figuring out all these every day.

High gas prices, inflation, interest rate rising, rising taxes, Obamacare premium stuffs are not in control by any average guy. Just need to deal with it and focus on oneself how to stay above water to enjoy the golden years and keep working and driving these old cars while you still can.

[MKA]

I'm not sure this is a problem you can drill your way out of and it's not all a regulation issue. 

The US is the number one consumer of oil in the world.  We use more than India and China combined which are the number 2 and number 3 consumers  We have say 15 percent of their combined population. 

On the production side we are consistently in the top 3 of oil producing countries in the world grouped tightly with Saudi and Russia neither country being a democracy.   Most of the easy Oil in the US is already tapped.   I think it was back in 2016 or 2017 that several Shale Oil companies went bankrupt when the market was flooded with Saudi oil and gas was cheap.  The saudis purposely flooded the market to target the shale producers ( remember this?)   Shale producers need the price of oil to be consistently in the $50 - $70 range just to break even.   So why aren't they drilling more wells now?   Because they remember companies going bankrupt and they chose not to based on the belief that the current price shock is temporary.    In other words they want and need you to pay a high price per barrel to have the capital incentive to drill. 

We actually need a balanced energy policy using alternative energy sources and consumers and yes more drilling but that needs to be balanced and yes we do need some regulation if you don't like tar balls on your beaches or gas in your water well.    With the amount of oil we use now there is zero chance not to be in the pocket of Saudi's.   In addition to producing oil they chop people heads off in the street for doing things against their religion and government.  Not the best partner. 

As for the politicians, I hate them all.  I have my policy leanings (left) but  I don't get people worshipping one over the other.  They work for us, but it always seems their interest are first and everything these days is extreme left and right.  These guys need to work together and there has to be a middle.   Even when they went to Ukraine they went separately.   one posse as Dems and the next as Republicans.  WTF were Americans.  Go together and represent USA assholes. It's some shit watching this crap as the world goes to hell and they all vote party over country.  We all need to be paying attention, they work for us.

[70 Challenger Lover]

US oil production is still way down from 2019-2020.  The oil companies are happily not producing more oil and keeping prices high.  That's how markets are manipulated.

Oil production is down because the new President made a series of changes. Biden and his team did and continue to do everything to unravel what Trump put in place. Is Biden manipulating the market?

People like you always put blame on companies but fail to understand that companies are in business to make money and they react to ever changing policies, laws and regulations put in place by the people we elect. If you want to punish someone, vote differently.

[HP2]

I made five cross country trips moving with a heavy car trailer. Thankfully all the trips were completed before the presidential election. I paid $1.69-$1.89 consistently everywhere outside CA. When Bush was President, gas prices were around $2.00 a gallon. Obama had it up around $5.00 for much of his time in office.

People have very short memories on stuff like this.

Short memories indeed.

GW Bush's administration made gas prices rise from a low of $1.48 to a high of $4.09 via their policies and the global war on terror. A global recession in 2008, uninitiated by the president, drove it down to $1.71.  By the end of is term, overall prices were up 15% over 8 years with a 176% range in the same time.

BH Obama's administration took over at $1.71, and saw a peak price at $4.12 due to the recovery from the recession. By the end of this administration, it was down to $1.87. Overall a 9% increase over his 8 years and a 140% range over the same time. BTW, it was Obama that removed the policy that prevented the US from exporting oil that was implemented by Nixon. The ability to serve global markets is what lead to an excess availability of oil that drove the prices down.

DJ trump took over at $1.87 and saw prices slowly increase to $3.05. During a global pandemic, which the president did not initiate,  prices dropped to $1.91. When he left office it was at $2.49, for a net change of 33% increase over his 4 years with a 63% range in prices.

JR Biden took  over at $2.49. Average today is around $4.33. At 57% increase over the last 15 months. Jury is still out on where it will end and how widely it will fluctuate.

So it appears to me that regardless of who is president and regardless of their party affiliation and the efforts made by any administration, prices continue to rise and any significant change in pricing tends to be the result of larger forces that impact a wider population than simply the US or even North America.

[MKA]

Look up drill rig counts in the US by year.   The high was in 2015 (quiz who was in office in 2015  ).  2015 is also the year that the bottom started to fall out as the saudis dumped oil into the market to bankrupt shale producers.   Look up the cost to produce shale.  yes it's economics.   Yes they expect and we expect they want a profit.  I don't work for free.   That means they need the price to be consistently higher.   I held MLP stocks which by no means makes me an expert but you do tend to pay attention when drillers go out of business because there isn't price support.   So drill baby drill but I'm sorry the oil in the US is actually getting harder to pull out of the ground and it's getting more expensive like everything else in the world.   And yes everyone wants a profit.   

https://fortune.com/2021/03/05/saudis-americas-frackers-drill-gone-forever/

And yes vote but know your facts because we have to do better than these current jerks on both sides.   They shouldn't have to spit in peoples faces and lie to have an exchange of ideas and a middle ground.

[HP2]

On the production side we are consistently in the top 3 of oil producing countries in the world grouped tightly with Saudi and Russia neither country being a democracy.   Most of the easy Oil in the US is already tapped.   I think it was back in 2016 or 2017 that several Shale Oil companies went bankrupt when the market was flooded with Saudi oil and gas was cheap.  The saudis purposely flooded the market to target the shale producers ( remember this?)   Shale producers need the price of oil to be consistently in the $50 - $70 range just to break even.   So why aren't they drilling more wells now?   Because they remember companies going bankrupt and they chose not to based on the belief that the current price shock is temporary.    In other words they want and need you to pay a high price per barrel to have the capital incentive to drill. 

We actually need a balanced energy policy using alternative energy sources and consumers and yes more drilling but that needs to be balanced and yes we do need some regulation if you don't like tar balls on your beaches or gas in your water well.    With the amount of oil we use now there is zero chance not to be in the pocket of Saudi's.   In addition to producing oil they chop people heads off in the street for doing things against their religion and government.  Not the best partner. 

As for the politicians, I hate them all.  I have my policy leanings (left) but  I don't get people worshipping one over the other.  They work for us, but it always seems their interest are first and everything these days is extreme left and right.  These guys need to work together and there has to be a middle.   Even when they went to Ukraine they went separately.   one posse as Dems and the next as Republicans.  WTF were Americans.  Go together and represent USA assholes. It's some shit watching this crap as the world goes to hell and they all vote party over country.  We all need to be paying attention, they work for us.

Agree with all of this. Many forget we do produce a large amount of oil. I'd also add that regardless of oil prices and consumption, we will always be in the packet of the Saudis. There are policies around this going back to the post WW2 era that are in no danger of ever being changed.

Also agree most politicians should be flushed. I've seen all sorts of people advocate about starting a new civil war, even from members on this board. Well, IMO, it started 40 years ago and has been waged ever since, but it isn't the bloody armed conflict we normally think of. Its an economic war that has allowed the ultra rich to get richer while the rest of us fight for tables scraps. How many even remember things like the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal? This led to a series of banking scams that defrauded the tax payers out of billions while the principle parties all walked away free. Its only intensified since then.  These ultra rich are perfectly satisfied to watch us all beat each other up over conservative vs liberal because it distracts us from the bigger context of how lesser known but more impactful legislation is pushed through by  politicos who are bought off smalltime politicians for a few $100k that will then push approval of laws that will reap the benefactors billions of benefit. Meanwhile we work our butts off to provide for ourselves and sit back and indulge of our chosen media outlets to continue to feed us our view that this is all the fault of those damn people who aren't like me.

[anlauto]

All I know is when we bought my wife's Challenger in 2017, it costs $60-$65 to fill it up....today I just put $132.00 of gas in it...

[Katfish]

Complicated issue with many contributing factors, some things started many years ago, some more recent.
And it is completely correct that politicians are our worst enemy, on both sides.

[7212Mopar]

Took my out for a drive yesterday on a sunny day. $6.69 a gallon 91 octane at Chevron.

[bentpshrods]

     Here in Boise, Id. it was 85* today so I went for a nice drive. My gas gauge doesn't work so I always have to fill up before I go.  4.51 reg. and 4.91 premium (91 octane) here. Our gas is brought in by a pipe line from Utah so we are always about .25 more per gallon than the national average.

[jordan]

I grabbed the wrong gas can to bring to the track yesterday to race motorcycles.  So I got a few gallons of Sunoco 93 octane non ethanol for 8.49/gal.  Gas at the track is always more expensive, but wow!!