Gas prices....explain it to me without your tin-foil hat:

[Sine Qua Non]

Anyone have access to past oil prices by the barrel with gas prices for those periods? At $46 a barrel and still falling. The gas prices are not dropping fast enough. Seems like the gas stations is now keeping the prices inflated a little to pad their bottom line for awhile until oil starts climbing back up. Lowest price here for me is $1.79 and highest is $2.05. The discrepancy is too large IMHO and should be priced around $1.39-$1.49

[nando]

yeah, it's really too bad that opinions don't affect gas prices. :|

[Sine Qua Non]

yeah, it's really too bad that opinions don't affect gas prices. :|

That's why I was asking about past gas prices based on barrel cost. Something tells me gas is still priced higher than it really should be.

[nando]

Well, if you knew anything about how gas is made, you wouldn't be so mistaken.

A. oil is stored in tanks after the refineries purchase it. They're large - a small tank might be 40,000 barrels, a large one 150,000-200,000. It takes a while to process and they usually have a lot more than 1 tank, plus any oil they've got in transit (via train, tanker, pipeline etc). Since they already paid for it the input costs are fixed until they've used up that supply.

B. after they've processed it, they don't send it straight to the gas station. it goes to another storage tank which is just as large as the crude tanks, and also there will be product in transit that's already been priced/sold. Then the gas station will sell it at a price they can make a small profit on (typically pennies per gallon). They aren't going to drop their price until they've used up that product.

C. taxes. oil may have fallen 50%, but there's a significant tax portion, and as prices fall further the tax rate increase because it's a fixed amount. Also, gas was a lot more than $4.00 in many places, it's already fallen at least 50% if not more. Prices are more than likely just about right for the market conditions.

Back when prices went up, our silly government spent all sorts of resources trying to pin price fixing on oil companies, refineries, and gas stations. they never once were able to find any evidence of that happening.

[ForcedFirebird]

That's why I was asking about past gas prices based on barrel cost. Something tells me gas is still priced higher than it really should be.

For one, it takes time to process that crude oil.

It get's confusion because gas prices don't reflect what the stations paid. Wouldn't doubt that some stations still have the high priced gas in their holding tanks, but can't justify keeping the prices to match what they paid - every other station around them will drop prices according to the "norm". Just like when the prices shoot up almost over night, every station will take advantage of the added profits until the holding tanks have to be refilled.

[ForcedFirebird]

They aren't going to drop their price until they've used up that product

Not sure about that with so much competition in more populated areas. Every station seems to watch the others and change the prices immediately, no matter if the prices goes up or down.

[rcsoundn1]

Gas stations get deliveries multiple times a week. Price drops or raises will not affect what they have in their takes that terribly because they dont keep more then they sell in a few days on hand. They make about 2 cents a gallon

[nrubenstein]

Saudi Arabia is looking to fuck Iran and to a lesser extent, make shale and fracking less appealing. But mostly fuck Iran. The fact that they are fucking so many other oil states is just collateral damage.