What are you paying for gasoline?

[noboundaries]

My wife was in Atlanta last week. $3.06 / gal when she filled up the rental car. Big difference from the left coast.

 

[forktender]

My wife was in Atlanta last week. $3.06 / gal when she filled up the rental car. Big difference from the left coast.

Sad, isn't it? I live in the East Bay Area, I just paid $5.15 for regular a few days ago. Hell, our refineries, aren't even making gasoline anymore, all they have been making for over a yr has been bio diesel. They have been importing gas from 3rd world countries, and holding it in their tanks to resell at a MUCH higher rate.
Our country is in a sad state of affairs, it's out of control, something needs to change quickly, that's all I will say without getting political.

 

[Winterrider]

$3.22 ND

 

[Gonna Smoke]

Roughly $3.00/gal. for regular, $3.59/gal. for 89 octane ethanol free, $3.49/gal. for diesel...

A year since my post and prices are about the same...

 

[mneeley490]

The Shell station near me is still $4.59, although I did see it at a QFC store this weekend for $3.99. I travel a few miles to the Reservation and can get it there for $3.65. Of course, what I save in gas, I lose at the casino.

 

[gmc2003]

3.39 to 3.49 mostly, but what I'm really liking is the almost 40 mpg the Subaru gets compared to my old truck which was about 16 to 17.

 

[Hijack73]

Last night, 2.85 (good Exxon gas too)
Next lowest station per gas buddy was 2.99 (I verified) at a P66
Next was WalMart - 3.08 or 3.09
most everywhere else was 3.19+

Gas buddy is starting o to really irritate me. There are users (I suspect station workers or owners) that are starting to game it. They will post their gas as cheap as the cheapest place close to them, but in reality it will be much higher priced. I correct it all, and sometimes when I get home from the station it's already been changed back to the lower price.

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

$4.90 here in So Cal. Galvin approved another $.50\G tax hike.

 

[forktender]

$4.90 here in So Cal. Galvin approved another $.50\G tax hike.

EFFF, that punk.

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

EFFF, that punk.

It sucks but luckily since I have retired I only have to fill up once a month. If I still worked and had to fill up twice a week I would be pissed.

 

[Smokin Okie]

Sad, isn't it? I live in the East Bay Area, I just paid $5.15 for regular a few days ago. Hell, our refineries, aren't even making gasoline anymore, all they have been making for over a yr has been bio diesel. They have been importing gas from 3rd world countries, and holding it in their tanks to resell at a MUCH higher rate.
Our country is in a sad state of affairs, it's out of control, something needs to change quickly, that's all I will say without getting political.

I'm very familiar with the oil and gasoline markets.

I don't know your source for the importing of gasoline, but I doubt it , greatly.

The problem you have in California, is your State govt puts environmental demands upon refining gasoline. The gasoline you get from your refineries, is not the same as the rest of the country or the rest of the world.

And some foriegn country is not gonna refine gasoline just for California. They can't flip a switch.

Say, when a California refinery goes down for some reason, like most usually a fire. That takes gasoline off the market. And it can't be replaced from refineries outside the state, as would happen nation wide. The California gasoline market is entirely self contained within the state due to your environmental laws.

The demands on California refineries from your state govt is the primary and maybe only reason you pay a higher price. And the regulation is not decreasing, its increasing due to your politicians are on board the climate change train. Your situation is not gonna get better, its gonna get worse for consumers. My guess as to how your politicians continue to get re-elected, is the majority of voters in California are also on board that train.

I've not paid a lot of attention lately, but no one wants to own a refinery in California. I think Exxon is completely out of the state now. I haven't heard much about Chevron. But the refineries have been up for sale and have been purchased by smaller operators.

 

[gmc2003]

Sad, isn't it? I live in the East Bay Area, I just paid $5.15 for regular a few days ago. Hell, our refineries, aren't even making gasoline anymore, all they have been making for over a yr has been bio diesel. They have been importing gas from 3rd world countries, and holding it in their tanks to resell at a MUCH higher rate.

I'm very familiar with the oil and gasoline markets.

I don't know your source for the importing of gasoline, but I doubt it , greatly.

The problem you have in California, is your State govt puts environmental demands upon refining gasoline. The gasoline you get from your refineries, is not the same as the rest of the country or the rest of the world.

And some foriegn country is not gonna refine gasoline just for California. They can't flip a switch.

Say, when a California refinery goes down for some reason, like most usually a fire. That takes gasoline off the market. And it can't be replaced from refineries outside the state, as would happen nation wide. The California gasoline market is entirely self contained within the state due to your environmental laws.

The demands on California refineries from your state govt is the primary and maybe only reason you pay a higher price. And the regulation is not decreasing, its increasing due to your politicians are on board the climate change train. Your situation is not gonna get better, its gonna get worse for consumers. My guess as to how your politicians continue to get re-elected, is the majority of voters in California are also on board that train.

I've not paid a lot of attention lately, but no one wants to own a refinery in California. I think Exxon is completely out of the state now. I haven't heard much about Chevron. But the refineries have been up for sale and have been purchased by smaller operators.

To be fair, wouldn't anything outside of California's borders be considered a third-wold country to Gruesome Newsom and his band of cronies.

Chris

 

[mneeley490]

WA state is similar. Our idiot Guv forced an extra carbon tax on every gallon, which makes our gas about $1 or more than the rest of the country (CA excluded.) And every time the price of gas starts to go down, they pull a refinery offline for "maintenance", and up it goes again.

 

[clifish]

WA state is similar. Our idiot Guv forced an extra carbon tax on every gallon, which makes our gas about $1 or more than the rest of the country (CA excluded.) And every time the price of gas starts to go down, they pull a refinery offline for "maintenance", and up it goes again.

PA and IL are not far behind

 

[Smokin Okie]

WA state is similar. Our idiot Guv forced an extra carbon tax on every gallon, which makes our gas about $1 or more than the rest of the country (CA excluded.) And every time the price of gas starts to go down, they pull a refinery offline for "maintenance", and up it goes again.

It comes down to basic logic.

No climate change advocate is going to want cheap gasoline. They want the price as high as they can get it, no matter what they say when campaigning. Not only to reduce consumption, but to make alternatives economically viable.

And for the oil and refining industries, they put regulations on production, they slow play or ban permitting, they fight any transportation facilities, i.e. pipelines , etc .

If they had their wish, it would sell for $10 a gallon or more.

But what's really maddening, and especially for the oil industry, is to hear a politician blame high prices on greedy oil companies. They won't take responsibility for their actions cause they're afraid of losing an election.

 

[chopsaw]

PA and IL are not far behind

I drove a service truck for an HVAC shop over in Illinois back in the late 70's . They were a buck higher than Missouri back then .

 

[Smokin Okie]

I drove a service truck for an HVAC shop over in Illinois back in the late 70's . They were a buck higher than Missouri back then .

Late 70's was a very odd time in the gasoline market.

Price of oil was getting the blame for inflation, so Nixon and the Republicans put wage and price controls in place in the early 70's.

There were different layers of oil price control. There was a price for imported oil, a price for domestic oil produced before a certain date ( called old oil ) , there was a price for new oil. There were a couple more categories that elude me now, I think they related to secondary oil recovery techniques.

Refiners would go looking for the cheapest oil. They might turn down imported oil in favor of old domestic oil. Basically, the price controls created a basket full of unintended consequences. Prices varied all over. Some parts of the country had shortages and gas lines. Others, like here in Oklahoma, never saw that.

Bottom line, wage and price controls don't work. But it took almost an entire decade before Paul Volker was appointed Fed Chair and did what was necessary to stop inflation, and that was greatly reduce the money supply by increasing the Fed Fund rate. Which economists like Milton Friedman had been arguing for since the 1960's.

Oil was deregulated in 1980, in a deal with the Carter administration. They agreed to deregulate oil if a Windfall Profits Tax was put in place. A few years later, local oil companies here in Oklahoma, were filing Chap 11 bankruptcy and completing Windfall Profit paper work, at the same time.

It was not oil prices that triggered the inflation of the 70's. It was deficit spending due to the Vietnam war. We fought that war on the large part, by printing money. LBJ did have a surcharge on income for high income earners, but it was not near enough.

The 70's were an anomaly .

 

[mneeley490]

Late 70's was a very odd time in the gasoline market.

Price of oil was getting the blame for inflation, so Nixon and the Republicans put wage and price controls in place in the early 70's.

There were different layers of oil price control. There was a price for imported oil, a price for domestic oil produced before a certain date ( called old oil ) , there was a price for new oil. There were a couple more categories that elude me now, I think they related to secondary oil recovery techniques.

Refiners would go looking for the cheapest oil. They might turn down imported oil in favor of old domestic oil. Basically, the price controls created a basket full of unintended consequences. Prices varied all over. Some parts of the country had shortages and gas lines. Others, like here in Oklahoma, never saw that.

Bottom line, wage and price controls don't work. But it took almost an entire decade before Paul Volker was appointed Fed Chair and did what was necessary to stop inflation, and that was greatly reduce the money supply by increasing the Fed Fund rate. Which economists like Milton Friedman had been arguing for since the 1960's.

Oil was deregulated in 1980, in a deal with the Carter administration. They agreed to deregulate oil if a Windfall Profits Tax was put in place. A few years later, local oil companies here in Oklahoma, were filing Chap 11 bankruptcy and completing Windfall Profit paper work, at the same time.

It was not oil prices that triggered the inflation of the 70's. It was deficit spending due to the Vietnam war. We fought that war on the large part, by printing money. LBJ did have a surcharge on income for high income earners, but it was not near enough.

The 70's were an anomaly .

I remember my dad nearly blowing a gasket in '73 when gas hit $1 a gallon. Ah, the good old days...

 

[Smokin Okie]

I remember my dad nearly blowing a gasket in '73 when gas hit $1 a gallon. Ah, the good old days...

It was the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when OPEC first used oil as a weapon. OPEC was formed in the 1960's, but did not come to be a power until 1970, when US domestic production peaked.

As demand continued to grow and US production could not meet that demand, then OPEC became the swing producer with the pricing power.

Yom Kippur was an Arab / Israeli war. And OPEC punished anyone who supported Israel by halting exports to that country. With the USA being the primary target. It caused a price shock. I recall gasoline going from 19 cents to 35 cents a gallon. Which may not seem like much , but the price doubled. Maybe comparable to gasoline going from $3 to $6, basically over night.

But the Arab boycott impact did not last long. We found a way to purchase OPEC oil through other countries.

It was the regulation of the price of oil as part of the overall Wage and Price Controls, that caused the market distortions and the price problems.

 

[normanaj]

$3.00 about an hour ago at BJs with the BJs credit card.