Good points, Tom
I can go to my Earthlink financial section and get a listing of all the
companies in the oil & gas sector with their profit margins (and I can do
that for any other business sector) from their financial reports regulated
by the SEC.
It's straight-forward--if oil is $75/barrel, then the oil going into the
refinery for conversion to gasoline costs $1.68/gal.
If the price of the resulting gas is $3/gal at the pump, then the difference
($3-$1.68=$1.32) or $1.32/gal is the combined amount of: transportation &
storage costs on both sides of the refinery; the additive costs; Federal,
state,and local taxes; and, finally, the combined profits of everybody in
the supply chain who handles the stuff. If the big integrated oil companies
can make 10% profit out of all that, it's not unreasonable compared to other
businesses.
To me, these $ numbers are just another form of quantitative data like
bearing clearances, compression ratio, displacement, etc.
But there may be another explanation---Oil comes from old vegetable and
animal matter that's been buried in the earth for millions of years. There
is some kind of ancient virus in the oil that cannot be removed when the
stuff is refined, no matter how hard the refiners try to remove it. And the
virus isn't destroyed in the combustion process. So when the virus in the
exhaust fumes is inhaled by politicians, TV talking heads, or other
susceptible humans they go berserk. If I can get a Nobel prize for this
theory then I won't give a crap about the price of gas.
Lance
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Neimeyer" <Tneimeyer@houston.rr.com>
To: "Robert J. Denton Images" <foxriverkid@earthlink.net>; "land-speed
submit" <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 11:23 PM
Subject: Re: NON-LSR OIL & GASOLINE INFO
> So Bob, I guess you are in the Refining business? You understand how the
> environmentalists made us build MTBE plants 10 years ago and now won't
> allow us to use it in gas, that was a great investment that didn't work.
> How about the new low sulfur diesel requirements placed on refiners by the
> environmentalists via the government? How about letting us build a
> Refinery in your neighborhood.
>
> Domestic Refining makes about 8%-9% profits. Grocery stores make 10-12%.
> Banks make 15%-20% profits. Pharmaceutical companies make 25-30% profit
> Why are you worried about Refiners ripping you off, everybody else is
> doing it more than Refiners!
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