Here comes $100 oil, and $3 gas

How is this news?

I've been paying $3 and up for gas for several months now. Now gas prices going down...now that would be news...or fantasy.

 

I wonder if it will be enought to stop the brand new SUV and Super Gigantic Crewcab Pickups sales around my area. So far, the price of fuel has not even put a dent in the buying habits of the people I see on the highways and streets where I live. I see brand new Super Gas Suckers every day. I just keep shaking my head.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(subarutoo @ Oct 26 2007, 03:23 PM) [snapback]530825[/snapback]</div>

$3.00 gas sounds pretty good to me. We just had a short dip that dropped below $3.00, but it's back up again. Our gas prices always rise for the summer tourist season, and rise again for each weekend (tourists again). Come to think of it, if it's called tourist season, why can't we shoot them?

Tom

 

You don't have to look back very far to find $50 oil... and the corresponding $2.50 gas. So now with oil nearing $100, gas is still, on average below $3. Amazing.

 

I watch Motorweek each Saturday on PBS (HD Satellite feed). I think people still just don't get it. "The new shiny (insert brand name here) with 40% more HP". "Good mileage at 23 MPG US". Good for a guzzler!
But you in America have nothing to complain about re gas prices. It's more just about everywhere else in the world, perhaps except Mexico. Here in Canada, we pay about $3.80 Can. per US gallon (about $1 per litre depending on the location and day). My last fillup was at $0.92 per litre or about $3.50 per US gallon. That's more now in US dollars. Multiply by 1.04 last I heard to convert the money too.

Yup, Super Duty Fords, giant Dodges, Expeditions, Suburbans, etc. are everywhere here too. Selling like "hotcakes". I've got lots of money invested in oil and banks (car loans). Helps pay for my Prius.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Oct 26 2007, 04:08 PM) [snapback]530847[/snapback]</div>

Darrel, the *beauty* of government subsidies.

In Europe where these subsidies don't exist - because countries like France & Germany aren't exactly oil producers, they pay up to twice the cheapest US price.

Here in Quebec, where we are heavily taxed, price is often over 50% that of Vermont.
Yet Canada exports more than it uses.

Plus we have so much surplus natural gas, they are using the extra NG to heat the earth deep underground to boil out of the rocks & sand the oil in Alberta.

What great logic - gas to make oil to make gas, and it's not enough. They want to build a nuclear power plant to use electricity to extract the oil in the oil sands.

Hopefully Harper will get his head out of sand.

 

$3.31 per US gallon in our part of Hawaii - it has been over $3 for a couple of years now. There are more hybrids and non-gas guzzlers on the road as a result, but it is a semi-rural area where people do drive their pickups to the ground.

Sadly, the people who can least afford the gas are the same people who can least afford a newer, more fuel-efficient car.

 

$3.00 would be a bargain.

I think $100 oil will get us $5.00 gas.

 

averaging 3.35 here. it should be more up towards San Francisco

 

Americans are so spoiled when it comes to gas prices, it's not even funny.

 

Gasoline in the United States is a bargain. Many of you will not agree, but, it's the truth. I just returned from a 3 week Med cruise to Italy, Croatia, Sicily, Spain and France and Gas costs in all these countries are over $8 per gallon!!!! All of the cars on the road are small and a good number of them are the Smart Cars that are so small in size you can't believe it. Since the Smart Car is approx the same in width as length, they park it two ways: normally parallel to the curb or pull in 90 degrees to the curb with the front bumper to the curb!!!

Regular 87 octane gasoline here in Tulsa has been (and still is) at $2.59 for the last 6 weeks. It helps to have refinerys and oil production in your home state. If you want to gripe about the high cost of gasoline, you should look at the Federal, State and Local taxes that are added on the price. You would be very surprised to see how much they are!!!! My wife and I bought an '08 Touring last month and love driving it. It's a well engineered car with surprising pickup, acceleration and handling capabilities. Needless to say, the gas economies are terrific. I believe Hybrid sales will continue to increase as gasoline prices continue to rise. I just hope Toyota Prius production rates continue to rise and remain high.

Slide

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Beale @ Oct 26 2007, 05:13 PM) [snapback]530850[/snapback]</div>

Hi Dave,

I have to agree, that show is so stale! I have given up watching it some time ago. Its like the Yet another SUV/Pickup/LimitedProduction>70GrandSportscar show. They just do a lousy job covering anything else. Goss's garage is the only section of the show that attempts to stay up-to-date, and they rerun segments of that every other show or so. Just was not good time spent anymore for me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(subarutoo @ Oct 26 2007, 12:23 PM) [snapback]530825[/snapback]</div>

Yep. Per http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/CAmetro.asp, it's right now an avg of $3.21/gal in San Jose, CA

 

I asked a guy I work with tonight why he keeps a Pilot instead of swapping to a smaller Fit. I mentioned he can easily fit two adults and one child in a Fit. He said he keeps the Pilot because of his dogs (they're big).

I often sit at stoplights here and marvel at the sheep laid before me. I see SUV, SUV, SUV, Truck, Truck, car, Truck, SUV, Truck, car, Truck, Truck, car, SUV, Van....all in a line. I comment loudly to myself, "Gee, I wonder why gas prices have gone up so much?!"

People need to get serious about their actual needs and stop dumping money into their gas tanks to feed their egos. The gas they burn today is gas their children will never have.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mark Derail @ Oct 27 2007, 06:24 AM) [snapback]530867[/snapback]</div>

Thought it might interest you Mark Derail, that in Moomba gas fields (South Australia) they are piping oil in from several kilometres away then pumping the oil into the gas wells to recover the natural gas from the wells. Once all the gas is recovered they can harvest to oil again by pumping it out.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ Oct 27 2007, 08:29 AM) [snapback]531132[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like a perpetual motion machine. When you look at how much electricity (the cost of which can be broken down into barrels of oil to run the steam turbines that make the electricity) is used to run the pumps, which pump the oil out, it will soon become a wash.

 

Isn't it amazing that in any other business, when the cost of raw materials goes up, the company's bottom line suffers? However, when oil prices rise, oil companies make record profits. The most profitable companies in the history of history and yet the government still gives them hand-outs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ Oct 27 2007, 07:53 AM) [snapback]531173[/snapback]</div>

When we started extracting oil in this contry, the energy balance was about 130:1. We got 130 units of energy out of the ground for every one we put in. That's windfall energy! Today it is something like 6:1. Obviously when it is 1:1 or worse, it is completely lost cause.

Was there ever any question? You don't think it'll magically stop at $5 do you? It wasn't long ago that I saw regular at over $4 already, so $5 is really no stretch. At $5, we're still giving it away - or more accurately, we're still subsidizing it.

For the record, I'm here in San Francisco this weekend (in our EV, naturally) and just passed $3.45 at a Chevron on Fell St.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mark Derail @ Oct 26 2007, 01:54 PM) [snapback]530867[/snapback]</div>

No way! I keep hearing that gasoline is *expensive* and that we do NOT subsidize this wonderful "I have the right to burn as much as I can afford" product! Now my head is just spinning!

Back when we WERE oil exporters, we held a lot of cards. We could, for example, tell Japan to take a leap - and try fighting an oil-fueled war without our oil. Ah... those were the days. Now look at who owns US, and can tell US to take a leap at any time. Just gives me that big ol' warm-fuzzy feeling inside.