austin1972

Not really. Deficit spending and the FedRes pumping dollars into the M1 stream are weakening the dollar. I'm not being political, so don't take it that way please! It's just economics and the way scarcity works. Kinda like Germans buying a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow full of money after WW1 but not as bad.
I have always thought that being in the commodties business as bad because you're at the mercy of the market but fuel prices and Big Oil profits have proven me woefully wrong on that!

chipmonk

i'm sure camperandy can clarify his statement, but many people who refer to 'the market', really mean the end consumer- 'the demand' component, of supply and demand. it seems like the oil industry is alone, in not being affected by the laws of supply and demand, when people become aware that supplies are at a 16 year high, domestic demand is steadily declining for the first time in history, and prices are at an all time high.

patdaly

On a different note, can someone please explain to me why we can not reprocess the fuel rods for a Nuclear reactor? I have been told is was due to our signing the SALT treaty, but I find that very, very difficult to swallow.

Surely there has to be a way to efficiently reprocess them to drastically reduce the amount of waste that needs to be stored.....

austin1972

I dunno Pat. I thought France did reprocess their spent fuel?

chipmonk

the only hazardous waste that is left from france's plants, is an extremely small, but extremely dangerous radioactive product (sorry, but i can't remember the specifics), that can easily be stored (and heavily guarded) until it becomes inert. i don't know where it stands now, but in '06 australia was looking very favorably at nuclear energy to supply their energy needs, in the near future.

pronstar

I understand what you're saying.
But we can't just look at the price of gasoline and diesel.

Crude oil pricing is sky-high despite good supplies...and this drives up the proce of gasoline and diesel...it's not as if crude is cheap but gasoline and diesel are expensive.

A super weak dollar really hurts us...things can get better if/when the dollar gains strength.

oilfield-trash

Free enterprise. I love it.

Iron Mike

You are talking about world wide supplies and domestic demand. Worldwide supply is up. But so is world wide demand. Oil is a world wide commodity. We import the bulk of it. So yeah. If China is willing to pay $100 a barrel for it then we must also pay that much for it. And yes, the oil companies are making a profit. If they weren't they would not be looking for more oil. The banks and the pharmacuetical companies all make a higher percent profit. ExxonMobil and the other Majors make so much money due to the shear volume. Look at percent of profit, that tells you if you are being ripped off or not. Plus keep in mind that in the US. Even though we import such a huge percentage of our oil, we still enjoy one of the cheapest prices in the world for Gasoline. Just be glad your truck doesn't run on water. It is already over $4 a gallon if you look at what a 16 oz bottle costs you at that same convenience store.

chipmonk

i would care a lot less about what the oil companies are doing, if there were more than 6 of them, and they hadn't bought up and closed so many refineries, for reasons that were later found out to be untrue. plus, there have been internal documents, recently made public, that clearly state that the oil companies made a concerted effort to keep the number of refineries at an extremely small number, in a plan to 'adjust' the market in their favor. www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcriptNOW145 click on search and enter 'cenco'.

scott hall

If we could make our trucks run on oil compamy's B.S. excuses we could drive around for free!

~Angry Tractor~

The oil companies are doing to the entire country what Enron did to California (rolling blackouts) and what ADM did with Lisene price fixing. Turn the tap off and run the price up. It is just that simple. I suspect this administraion is promoting them to do it. They will run it up as high as they can to get all they can before the democrats get in office. By then it will be too late.

trik396

Some of you guys and your conspiracy theories crack me up.....

Iron Mike, you are right on....

chipmonk

so an internal memo from chevron, that states by reducing refining capacity, the petroleum industry will see huge profits, is a conspiracy theory? just because other factors, like a weak dollar and increased demand from china are in play, doesn't mean that the tactics taken by the oil companies to intentionally manipulate the market, aren't taking place.

trik396

Business is business. They want to make money just like you do and I do.

I've owned Chevron stock for quite awhile now, along with other oil companies. I'm not complaining. Sometimes you have to learn to make the system work for you because you sure as hell aren't going to change it.

Flame suit on....

chipmonk

people who owned enron stock, before it collapsed, could have said the same thing. just because you're making money off of the oil companies, doesn't make the tactics of artificially manipulating the market any less wrong, or less harmful to working families, trying to fill up their tanks, or heat their homes- jmo.