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$114/bbl oil

BenBurch said:
Radio said it was trading at $114.

Is there a top end at current supply levels?
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Once it goes above $2^31, the industry will have to replace their 32 bit servers to track the price!
 
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Funny thing ... we don't seem to be using any less of it. Not because of price, but because it would seem to me that we should be using less due to supply limits, yet there seem to be none. Odd, almost any other commodity that becomes way expensive very quickly does so because of supply/demand principles, which in turn limits availability --- but is that happening here? Why not? Look what's happening to food in some places, prices have increased quickly due to reduced supply. Result, less food on the shelf. Is there any hint of less gasoline at the pumps? Oil for your home? Fuel for jets? It seems if you got the $$$$ we got the oil --- no matter how much you want.
 
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oil prices have had absolutely NOTHING to do with availability and demand since deregulation and the creation of the futures market.

Read http://www.citizen.org/documents/House07.pdf


It's all about greed - And NO don't give me crap about open market and competition because it simply does not exist.
 
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Just thinking said:
Funny thing ... we don't seem to be using any less of it.
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Out of curiosity, how much less gasoline do you think you could you use? If the price suddenly went to say fifteen or twenty dollars a gallon, what percentage of the amount you're buying now would you be forced to buy at that price? Could you cut your use, say, in half?
 
Dymanic said:
Out of curiosity, how much less gasoline do you think you could you use? If the price suddenly went to say fifteen or twenty dollars a gallon, what percentage of the amount you're buying now would you be forced to buy at that price? Could you cut your use, say, in half?
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I don't think I could cut my consumption in half, but in the 1970's I bought a car that got around 20 mpg ... I quickly traded it in (3 years) for one that got 25. Then in the 1980's I bought one that got 30. In the 1990's as a married couple, we bought one that got 30 and recently we bought another that gets over 35 mpg on the highway.

I also insulted my home and my parents' to save on fuel costs (better windows, insulated piping and ductwork, etc.). My wife also van pools to work. We use a solar cover to heat our pool (which can get too hot if not taken off now and then) instead of a gas heater. We switched over from an electric water heater to a gas one and we recently purchased a high efficiency air conditioning unit for the house.

So I would say, over time, my consumption of fossil fuels has gone down. And at no time was it ever an inconvenience, to me, my parents or my spouse.

But my argument wasn't questioning reducing the use of gasoline as a function of price, but rather the curious lack of reduced availability. Nowhere do I see signs of gas stations turning folks away because their tanks ran dry.
 
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Hindmost said:
Oil is still cheaper than bottled water.

glenn:boxedin:
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Is water at a premium where you live? I bought a gallon jug of it from a convenience store (a term not equated with low prices) for $1.29 yesterday. A gallon of gasoline cost almost triple that here in Texas, where prices are about $0.40 lower than most other states (and I'm not even going to mention California). And with oil at $118 a barrel (I'm assuming the average barrel is 55 gallons), that puts it roughly $1.9 for a gallon of oil.

Bottled water isn't more expensive than oil (it's the same water in my gallon jug that's in a 160z/400-something ml bottle at 7-11). Oil is just cheaper than the names Aquafina/Ozarka/Dasani/Poland Springs, etc. And even then, not always.
 
Magyar said:
oil prices have had absolutely NOTHING to do with availability and demand since deregulation and the creation of the futures market.

Read http://www.citizen.org/documents/House07.pdf


It's all about greed - And NO don't give me crap about open market and competition because it simply does not exist.
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Well, where do I start?

1) I never gave you any crap about anything ... I merely mentioned the fact that it doesn't follow the pattern of supply and demand and asked why not.

2) The futures market is not limited to oil speculators, so why doesn't this happen in other markets to the extent it does in oil? One might argue with food, but some areas are showing limited supplies --- but not oil. Hence my curiosity.

3) Greed is also not limited to oil speculators. It's everywhere ... when given half a chance it rears its ugly head for all to see. But oil gets most of (if not all) the blame. To me, there's more to it, or at least there seems to be.
 
Polaris said:
Is water at a premium where you live? I bought a gallon jug of it from a convenience store (a term not equated with low prices) for $1.29 yesterday. A gallon of gasoline cost almost triple that here in Texas, where prices are about $0.40 lower than most other states (and I'm not even going to mention California). And with oil at $118 a barrel (I'm assuming the average barrel is 55 gallons), that puts it roughly $1.9 for a gallon of oil.

Bottled water isn't more expensive than oil (it's the same water in my gallon jug that's in a 160z/400-something ml bottle at 7-11). Oil is just cheaper than the names Aquafina/Ozarka/Dasani/Poland Springs, etc. And even then, not always.
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Here, bottled water is around $1.60 a litre, and petrol between $1.42 and $1.60, depending on which day of the week it is.
 
Just thinking said:
So I would say, over time, my consumption of fossil fuels has gone down.
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And all those barrels of oil you didn't use are now sloshing around in SUV's.

But my argument wasn't questioning reducing the use of gasoline as a function of price, but rather the curious lack of reduced availability. Nowhere do I see signs of gas stations turning folks away because their tanks ran dry.
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It's a bidding war. The tanks don't run dry because the losers don't show up. They take the bus; walk; whatever. If gas was fifty dollars a gallon, there would still be takers. The pure status value of driving would be enormous. But in general, the price elasticity of demand for gasoline is relatively low. If potato chips were fifty bucks a bag, demand would immediately drop to zero. Nobody needs potato chips that bad.
 
Magyar said:
oil prices have had absolutely NOTHING to do with availability and demand since deregulation and the creation of the futures market.
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Since "deregulation"? What deregulation? And regulation simply alters supply or demand or price.

It's all about greed - And NO don't give me crap about open market and competition because it simply does not exist.
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And yet you just said deregulation. Which is it?
 
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