The Price of Oil/Gas and why

[JuliusPleaser]

I'm looking for investors for my next product line.

It's a hi-flow siphon hose with a silent hand crank. Come with a universal key for locking gas caps and NVG.

 

[Solid State]

robwbright,

Are you sure it's not linked to the dyno run of a two-stroke 250?

 

[2-Strokes 4-ever]

So... common sense flys out the window again.
Lawyers... I smell an "agenda" to puff ones self esteem up. (for others, and if we buy it... themselves.) :|
Graphs... "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance...

 

[JuliusPleaser]

Here's some common sense for you.

Big oil has two choices. They can either:

A. Do nothing and continue to make more profit than any industry in the history of mankind (while blaming the Democrats, liberals, hippies, ecoterrorists, and enviro-nazis for those record profits).

B. Spend billions of dollars on drilling and new refineries so they can sell their products for less.

Let's talk about common sense. ;)

 

[Patman]

How do ya' figure that JP?
The "cost" of gasoline roughly breaks down like this.
-58 percent of the cost is for crude oil (the product itself, with a price determined by its market demand)
-15 percent goes to state and federal taxes
-17 percent to oil companies and refineries
-10 percent to distributors and marketers

Do the big oil companies make huge profits? Sure but what drives the cost of the base product up? Who doesn't want us tapping in to some the largest oil fields ever found? It looks like 17% of the buck stops at the big oil companies and 58% is someplace else. Shouldn't the 58% get 58% of the blame? The oil companies are not setting the price of the base product, but I figured everyone knew that.

 

[XRpredator]

Here's some common sense for you.

Big oil has two choices. They can either:

A. Do nothing and continue to make more profit than any industry in the history of mankind (while blaming the Democrats, liberals, hippies, ecoterrorists, and enviro-nazis for those record profits).

B. Spend billions of dollars on drilling and new refineries so they can sell their products for less.

Let's talk about common sense. ;)

I think they'd spend billions of dollars on drilling and new refineries if the Democrats, liberals, hippies, ecoterrorists, and enviro-nazis (and anyone else for that matter) would take a step back and let some of it happen. If the mandates and regulations weren't so prohibitive, I would imagine the oil companies would be building refineries and drilling wells like crazy, because those billions would translate to trillions at some point, maybe even translate to brazilians!

I love you JP

Love,

your pal

pred :)

 

[JuliusPleaser]

How do ya' figure that JP?
The "cost" of gasoline roughly breaks down like this.
-58 percent of the cost is for crude oil (the product itself, with a price determined by its market demand)
-15 percent goes to state and federal taxes
-17 percent to oil companies and refineries
-10 percent to distributors and marketers

Do the big oil companies make huge profits? Sure but what drives the cost of the base product up? Who doesn't want us tapping in to some the largest oil fields ever found? It looks like 17% of the buck stops at the big oil companies and 58% is someplace else. Shouldn't the 58% get 58% of the blame? The oil companies are not setting the price of the base product, but I figured everyone knew that.

Oil companies break profit records every quarter.

 

[JuliusPleaser]

I think they'd spend billions of dollars on drilling and new refineries if the Democrats, liberals, hippies, ecoterrorists, and enviro-nazis (and anyone else for that matter) would take a step back and let some of it happen. If the mandates and regulations weren't so prohibitive, I would imagine the oil companies would be building refineries and drilling wells like crazy, because those billions would translate to trillions at some point, maybe even translate to brazilians!

I love you JP

Love,

your pal

pred :)

Why would they try to fix what isn't broken? What vested interest do they have? They're breaking profit records every quarter. Why screw it up by spending money on drilling and refineries (especially when people are so willing to blame those profits on others)?

*Smooches* ;)

 

[Patman]

Wow the buck stops with the big oil companies? What other short sighted tidbits are out there awaiting to be bestowed upon us? :laugh: LOTS of people and companies make profits so we need to blame them for the "high" cost of those products as well? I'm sure none of this has anything to do with global supply and demand, speculation on oil prices nor government policy :whoa:

How can you possibly not see that if a little profit is good a lot more is better and that the oil companies would gladly spend a little of their massive profits for an even larger return? You are suggesting they are happy with what they are getting? :laugh: If you knew you could quadruple your money on something by spending 15% more than you currently do on that same something with virtually no risk would you do it or are are you just happy as can be with what you currently have? Unless you have turned in to a monk there is only one answer. :laugh:

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

OPEC did it? They do not figure like we figure. The oil companies are just along for the ride, and they keep paying their fare. When do we get our windfall from opec? They control the volume of production. And if that chart is accurate, then countries paying more for crude than we are, are running in a deeper debt? And if everywhere is in the fiscal red, what happens when somebody calls in for all their money?

 

[JuliusPleaser]

That's the cool thing about being an American - you're free to buy whatever BS story you choose.

I choose to believe that big oil is perfectly happy to sit back and rake in the cash while blaming everyone under the sun for their enormous profits.

It's the capitalist thing to do.

Not that I have a problem with a company making enormous profits or anything - just don't blow smoke up my ass about it.

I wouldn't say a word if they would man up and admit that they're screwing us because they know nobody will stop them.

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

Just got a warning from our local natural gas and electric supplier. 58% increase expected this coming winter, due to escalated fuel oil prices. Now I understand why milk and bread are 4 bucks a piece, and why beef is going to go through the roof, but what in the hell does crude prices have to do with natural gas and electric? They have vehicles that run on natural gas, they are not alone getting screwed by crude prices. Well thats it, I will tell my boss my wages will increase 58 percent, retro effective 3-1-08. Soon to be gainfully unemployed, Bob

 

[2-Strokes 4-ever]

It is instinct (human nature) to assume everyone else thinks like we do, it's the very being of our individual belief system. If I'm convinced everyone's sneaky, manipulative, dishonest, selfish, all about "my own pocketbook", out to take advantage of me, and ultimately out to "rip me off"... what does that say about me?

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

Albeit there are plenty of people like that, like my boss and plenty of small businesses that do not have the leverage to just go jacking up the prices. To me its just the price of poker. To me its people, to them its figures. I do not have the seemingly pleasure, of effecting the world market at the punch of a key. I am fine with, they will get theirs sooner or later.

 

[Patman]

That's the cool thing about being an American - you're free to buy whatever BS story you choose.
.

Now that IS true. Do you happen to subscribe that all this oil that is being extracted will also cause the plates of the eart to rub together like a giant 2 stroke piston without premix? :)

Let me guess Elvis is still alive but abducted by little green men.

 

[XRpredator]

Let me guess Elvis is still alive but abducted by little green men.

He wasn't abducted, he just went to his home planet.

 

[JuliusPleaser]

Now that IS true. Do you happen to subscribe that all this oil that is being extracted will also cause the plates of the eart to rub together like a giant 2 stroke piston without premix? :)

I was wondering what all the squeaking was about.

 

[BSWIFT]

I don't know the exact amount of gallons of fuel sold in the US every day but, let's say that the oil companies clear $.01 of every gallon as profit. The resulting figure is huge (economy of scale). If you allow them to make $.01 thru every process from crude extraction, transportation, storage, refining, and retail delivery, you can see that their profits are HUGE. That is how an economy of scale works.
As a small business owner, I would flat be broke if I only made $.01 profit per given widget I produce. Now if you or anyone else are working for a private company and you only produce $.01 profit per widget, you'd be unemployed pretty quickly and you are about to see this happen in the 3 major US automakers.
US history provides many examples of "carpet bagging" and speculation. Each envolves greedy people or companies taking advantage of those in dire need. This is in effect, capitalism at its extreme. To me, those who drive up the price of such a vital comodity are UN-patriotic and they threaten our nations economic security, regardless of political affiliation. With all speculation there comes risks. The largest risk in this type of uncontrolled speculation is economic collapse and no president will have the power to stop it. Our do-nothing Congress will argue, study, and argue more before taxing us more and cause a second Historic Wall Street crash before any real solution is to be found, all the while lining their pockets with stock gains.
Continue to blaim the oil companies and the president if you must but they are only the whipping post of the ignorant and politically motivated. The Constitution spells out the powers of the three branches of government and I don't see anywhere that the President controls the price of fuel. The buck stops in congress. Congress is controlled by corperate special interests and the national party leaders that put their own agenda's ahead of the natural economic supply and demand formula.
Learn to grow your own food, fish, and hunt because the trips to the grocery store wll soon be the largest cut of your budget.

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

Learn to grow your own food, fish, and hunt because the trips to the grocery store wll soon be the largest cut of your budget. What 5 months ago was 150 a week to the grocery store is now 250! The corn for gas was a GREAT idea, surely that will go down in history of big blunders. Damn near 4 bucks for milk and bread, a piece. Was 3 bucks for both. Wonder how long a guy would last consuming tainted fish and game? Is it 1 source driving all the rest up? Thankfully not everything is going dollar crazy, or is it just gaining momentum? And yes, snivil'in is all that will get done till it is too late. Now, Steven Segal and Kieffer Sutherland could straighten this mess out.

 

[Solid State]

Now that IS true. Do you happen to subscribe that all this oil that is being extracted will also cause the plates of the eart to rub together like a giant 2 stroke piston without premix?

I was wondering what all the squeaking was about.

It's like bees - stinging me in my head - all over the world.

 

[Senior KX Rider]

I don't know the exact amount of gallons of fuel sold in the US every day but, let's say that the oil companies clear $.01 of every gallon as profit. The resulting figure is huge (economy of scale). If you allow them to make $.01 thru every process from crude extraction, transportation, storage, refining, and retail delivery, you can see that their profits are HUGE. That is how an economy of scale works.
As a small business owner, I would flat be broke if I only made $.01 profit per given widget I produce. Now if you or anyone else are working for a private company and you only produce $.01 profit per widget, you'd be unemployed pretty quickly and you are about to see this happen in the 3 major US automakers.
US history provides many examples of "carpet bagging" and speculation. Each envolves greedy people or companies taking advantage of those in dire need. This is in effect, capitalism at its extreme. To me, those who drive up the price of such a vital comodity are UN-patriotic and they threaten our nations economic security, regardless of political affiliation. With all speculation there comes risks. The largest risk in this type of uncontrolled speculation is economic collapse and no president will have the power to stop it. Our do-nothing Congress will argue, study, and argue more before taxing us more and cause a second Historic Wall Street crash before any real solution is to be found, all the while lining their pockets with stock gains.
Continue to blaim the oil companies and the president if you must but they are only the whipping post of the ignorant and politically motivated. The Constitution spells out the powers of the three branches of government and I don't see anywhere that the President controls the price of fuel. The buck stops in congress. Congress is controlled by corperate special interests and the national party leaders that put their own agenda's ahead of the natural economic supply and demand formula.
Learn to grow your own food, fish, and hunt because the trips to the grocery store wll soon be the largest cut of your budget.

You are absolutely right Brian. These companys operate on a profit margin of somewhere between 9 and 11 percent. That is borderline of being shameful in the business world. When we sold our company it operated at a 31 percent profit margin. The only ones ripping off the American people are the liberals in Washington DC

Maybe we should drill more oil and refine it in our own country.

Arctic May Hold 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, U.S. Says (Update2)
Arctic May Hold 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, U.S. Says (Update2)

By Joe Carroll

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

One-third of the undiscovered oil is in Alaskan territory, the agency found in a study released today. By contrast, a geologic formation beneath the North Pole claimed by Russian scientists last year probably holds just 1.2 percent of the Arctic's crude, the U.S. report showed.

Energy producers such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp. have accelerated exploration of the northernmost regions for untapped reserves amid record prices and receding access to deposits in more hospitable climates. Russia's move to scrap a United Nations convention and carve out an exclusive Arctic zone sparked protests from Canada, the U.S., Norway and Denmark.

``Most of the Arctic, especially offshore, is essentially unexplored with respect to petroleum,'' Donald Gautier, the project chief for the assessment, said in the report. ``The extensive Arctic continental shelves may constitute the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.''

Russia dispatched a nuclear-powered icebreaker to the Arctic Ocean last year to map a subsea link between Siberia and the North Pole as part of a bid to refute a UN convention limiting resource claims beyond 200 miles (321 kilometers) offshore. Canada said earlier this month that it plans to counter the Russian overture with ``a very strong claim'' to Arctic exploration rights.

No Time Estimate

The U.S. report didn't include an estimate for how long it will take to bring the reserves to markets. Offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa can take a decade or longer to begin pumping oil.

The geologists studied maps of subterranean rock formations across the 8.2 million square miles above the Arctic Circle to find areas with characteristics similar to oil and gas finds in other parts of the world.

The study also took into account the age, depth and shape of rock formations in judging whether they are likely to contain oil, Gautier said today during a conference call with reporters. Seismic data doesn't yet exist for most of the Arctic, he said.

``Petroleum doesn't just occur anywhere,'' Gautier said. ``It requires a very narrow set of burial conditions.''

U.S. oil executives such as Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Rex Tillerson and Chevron Corp.'s David O'Reilly have urged lawmakers to relax prohibitions against offshore drilling, including much of Alaska. Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress rejected President George W. Bush's July 14 effort to end a 25-year moratorium on drilling in most coastal waters.

West Siberia Basin

The region above the Arctic Circle also holds an estimated 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, equal to 27 percent of the world's known gas reserves, the study showed. Almost 40 percent of the gas reserves are in Russia's West Siberia Basin.

About 84 percent of the oil and gas reserves probably lie offshore, the report showed. The region also has an estimated 44 billion barrels of natural-gas-liquids such as propane and butane, which are used by chemical producers, oil refiners and for home heating.

The study encompassed all areas north of 66.56 degrees north latitude and only included reserves that could be tapped using existing techniques. Experimental or unconventional prospects such as oil shale, gas hydrates and coal-bed methane weren't included in the assessment.

Data Contributors

Contributors of data to the study included the Geological Survey of Canada, the U.S. Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Program and researchers in Denmark and Greenland. No Russian institutions took part in the study.

The survey only applied to undiscovered reserves. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Gazprom OAO and other energy producers have already found 400 oil and gas fields that hold the equivalent of 240 billion barrels. On a combined basis, the undiscovered reserves of oil and gas in today's report amount to 412 billion barrels.

Most of those discoveries remain capped because of a lack of pipeline or shipping facilities to haul the petroleum to markets.

Crude for September delivery fell $3.98, or 3.1 percent, to $124.44 a barrel at 2:59 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil climbed 66 percent in the past year on its way to a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.

Global Demand

Global crude demand is expected to rise by 1 percent this year to 86.85 million barrels a day, after a 1.3 percent increase in 2007, the International Energy Agency said in a July 10 report.

Kazakhstan, site of the world's two biggest oil discoveries of the past three decades, has 39.8 billion barrels of crude reserves, according to London-based BP Plc. Nigeria's reserves amount to 36.2 billion barrels and Mexico holds 12.2 billion. Russia, the world's largest producer last year, has 79.4 billion barrels of oil reserves and 1,577 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The U.S. is expected to use about 7.39 billion barrels of crude this year, according to the Paris-based IEA.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at


For to long we have caved to the eco freaks who parrot an unproven theory of man made global warming. These liberals are strangling an economy, american businesses and american familys. ITS JUST UNBELIEVABLE WHAT SUCKERS SOME PEOPLE ARE.

 

[XRpredator]

Arctic May Hold 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, U.S. Says

I think this is what the left doesn't want people to understand.

I'm pulling figures out of my ass here, but you'll get my drift

say, for example, someone says that 21 million barrels of oil will only last a day. People get nervous. Now some say that we there are 430 billion barrels in wells that are working (that's not including the 90 billion Senior just mentioned). Of course, that doesn't sound like much. Then again, with the math whizzes that have made it through our education system, they just don't understand that is one THOUSAND million barrels. Okay, still doesn't sound like much. But that would mean that it would last us about 20,500 months, or almost 60 years.

Now that seems like we might reach "peak oil" in my lifetime.

of course, again, all those numbers were made up by me, with very little research, but that's what I've been gathering as far as how close we are to running out.

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

Even if they said to hell with you Gore heads. No mention of the 1/3rd of our oil coming from our dear neighbors from the north. The local refinery is dumping a small fortune into being able to refine the heavier crude here in the states. It all means more revenues will be changing hands around Washington and opec, that came from us. The oil companies are spending record amounts on research to find more oil. Goody for THEM! That was our money also. Glad to see the crap below 4 dollars a gallon, it will not last. They have found the limits they can push us. Oh, there is a bunch of crude not moving at 4.50 a gallon. Well, slow down production, again!

 

[JuliusPleaser]

You are absolutely right Brian. These companys operate on a profit margin of somewhere between 9 and 11 percent. That is borderline of being shameful in the business world.

Is that before or after all the write-offs, multi-million dollar bonuses, and $20K nights with clients at strip clubs?

They’ve always been at the top of the pyramid, but the past few years it’s exceeded anything in the past. Businessweek recently published article on oil executive paychecks. For the article, they commissioned a study on the compensation of the top 25 oil and gas firm’s executives. Here’s some of what they found:

“Equilar’s study found that for the 12 CEOs at the largest U.S.-based, publicly traded oil companies, median total compensation increased by more than four times the rate of that of executives in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index as a whole.”

Last year, Exxon made the biggest profit of any company ever, $36 billion, and its retiring chairman appears to be reaping the benefits. Exxon is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes.

Last November, when he was still chairman of Exxon, Raymond told Congress that gas prices were high because of global supply and demand.

"We're all in this together, everywhere in the world," he testified.

Raymond, however, was confronted with caustic complaints about his compensation.

"In 2004, Mr. Raymond, your bonus was over $3.6 million," Sen. Barbara Boxer said.

That was before new corporate documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that revealed Raymond's retirement deal and his $51.1 million paycheck in 2005. That's equivalent to $141,000 a day, nearly $6,000 an hour. It's almost more than five times what the CEO of Chevron made.

 

[Patman]

So the solution to high gas prices is to tell companies how much they are allowed to compensate employees? Even if his $51M pay was reduced to $51K it woudn't fix the problem, it's not even a drop in the bucket.