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Gas at $4 per gallon
Published 10:51am Wednesday, September 12, 2012Gasoline prices in Fergus Falls jumped to nearly $4 per gallon on Tuesday.
Local convenience stores, including Casey’s, Take 5, Big Chief, M&H and Stop-N-Go, had the price this morning at $3.99.9 per gallon, an increase of 15 cents compared to the previous day. Olson Oil still had its price at $3.85.9 per gallon as of this morning.
The price represents the highest gasoline has been at in Fergus Falls, though it did hit the same $3.99.9 rate in 2008 or 2009, according to Bill Ring, owner of Pebble Lake Take Five in Fergus Falls.
“Who knows?” said Bill Ring, owner of Pebble Lake Take 5 in Fergus Falls. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Ring pointed out that it’s the first time he’s seen the gas price increase during an election year.
Those who voted for “Hope and Change”? Well, here is the “change” your guy has brought us. And it will only get worse with the boy wonder in the White House.
Well those of us who actually drive, remember that gas was $4.21 in June of 2008. As I recall the President at that time was George Bush not Barrack Obama. But if it makes you feel better living in a fantasy world Bill, I’ll bet that Barrack Obama is responsible for the closing of Godfather Pizza.
There should be a TARP bail out for Godfathers Pizza.
Nine-nine-nine
Maybe you want to read this link……..end of 2008, gas was $1.61 http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/2008-us-gas-price-year-in-review.html
Yep, all it takes is a few years of unbridled economic optimism and uncontrolled consumer excesses followed by this– “The idea of a serious financial industry recession is discussed as the market literally begins to melt down!” and Hello!!! cheap gasoline!!
There WAS the refinery fire in California. There ARE parts of other refineries in Louisiana down for maintenance. It could be the Koch Brothers, yes those radical right wing supporters of Tea Party activities, who are the single largest private holders of pipeline and refinery capacity in America holding the American people hostage to push their radical ideology.
But consider where gas prices would be if China’s purchase of Canadian oil and the Keystone pipeline meant to carry that oil to refineries in the gulf and then shipped to China had been completed? Without what little excess capacity in the gulf refineries to take up some of the loss of the California refinery, where would gasoline prices be now?
And how much LOWER could the prices be if 0bama hadn’t forbidden offshore and continental drilling permits to extract oil from our own country, forcing us to rely on the murderous purveyors in the Middle East? Reliable estimates are that the USA has access to greater supplies of petroleum on this continent and offshore than in all the rest of the world. The petroleum refineries shut down down for several days for each of them for the engineers to recalibrate the valves and guages and mixers to adjust to “winter blends” of gasoline. But, if George Bush could be faulted and blasted for the rises in oil prices, then Barry Soetero 0bama can get the same treatment during this run-up at the pump. Gas was $4.21 in places like California where the per gallon State tax is considerable than anywhere else, pushing up the price with rises in wholesale costs. My brother who lives in California emailed me today to say the price at a local station was already $4.36. Guess this is the “change” so many hoped for.
How much lower would prices be if we could more fully exploit our resources? Not much. Probably higher, in fact. This post at The Oil Drum is a good start, but there’s so much more to learn:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9085
The important takeaway from this is that it’s important to make a distinction between having abundant “resources” (the raw materials) and “reserves” (the materials that can be recovered economically). We may have plenty of the former, but it’s the latter that’s lacking here in the U.S.
Gone are the days where one could just stick a pipe in the ground and expect oil to bubble to the surface. Now it’s a multi-million dollar effort for just a single well that involves an immense amount of capital, steel, and nasty chemicals. One shouldn’t also forget the difficulties posed by the proposed locations of some of these wells — in the far, remote, cold north of Alaska or several thousand feet below the surface of the ocean. Those kind of operations don’t come cheap.
Or it’s a process that involves energy-intensive methods of mining then cooking rocks or sand to finish what we’re too impatient to let nature take care of herself. Either way, these approaches only become economically possible if we as consumers are willing to foot the bill for ever-increasing energy prices.
That we’re witnessing higher prices at the same time western N.D. is having an oil boom is no coincidence. While it’s certainly not a direct cause-and-effect, there exists a connection between the two phenomena that is more than simply casual.
The question is, ‘Why the spike in gasoline prices now?’ Search the internet for items on Gulf of Mexico crude production, oil refineries Lousiana, hurricane Isaac, September 15 and refinery conversion to winter production.
CNN money with the help of AP had a good, easy to read article on the current spike in gasoline prices.
In a bit of news not well covered, Shell Oil began drilling test holes on Alaska’s Outer Shelf in the Chukchi Sea. The 6 year wait for a permit ended in late August after the last attempt by Shell to correctly fill out the application stalled drilling last season. Again search the internet for blow-off valves, 150 feet of water and icebergs.
One wonders if we heard so little about the new exploration of what could be a huge oil deposit because 1) it is years away from producing any oil 2) it is using untested techinology to protect the environment 3) it works to destroy some of the fantasy regarding oil permitting in the US by the current administration. (Remember–we import 1 million fewer barrels a day now than 4 years ago.)