US gasoline prices fall in week, at 5-month low ($2.20 a gallon avg)

It just goes to show that if we had a president who had a little more of an adversarial relationship with Big Oil (instead of being in their pockets), we wouldn't be having the current "energy crisis."

right about the time the price of oil went down, the annual summer demand faded, and the refineries started to come back online.

They had been going down a little at a time - 5 cents here, 3 cents there, etc.

In the 8 hours between early morning after the hearings, as the stories hit the news stands and the airwaves, about the lies told about the Cheney meetings, gas prices on my route home (Nashville) dropped 20 cents per gallon.

and continue to do so through the "holiday" season.

James Kunstler:
.."since the hurricanes shredded our Gulf of Mexico oil and gas capacity*, Europe has been sending us 2 million barrels of crude oil and "refined product" a day from its collective strategic petroleum reserve. The "refined product" includes 800,000 barrels of gasoline, plus diesel, aviation, and heating fuel. Meanwhile, US domestic production has fallen to around 4 million barrels of conventional crude a day. America uses close to 22 million barrels of oil a day. Bottom line: post-hurricane, total imports have accounted for 80 percent of America's oil consumption.

Now, the important part of all this is that last week the International Energy Agency (IEA), Europe's energy security watchdog, declared that it would now end the 2 million barrel a day shipments to the US. Not because they are hateful meanies, but because, after all, it is Europe's strategic reserve and they can't sell it all to us because, well, some strategic emergency might come up for them, too.

It will take a few weeks for the last of Europe's tankers to offload supplies and for the various fuels to work their way through the US fuels retail system. With US production and refining still crippled, we can look forward to watching the price of gasoline, heating oil, diesel and aviation fuel kick back up through Thanksgiving and on into the heart of the Christmas shopping season. At the same time, homeowners will be getting their first substantial heating bills of the season."

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* - http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2005-09-08-hurr-oil-usat_x.htm

As Katrina bore down on New Orleans, it scythed through waters thick with oil platforms and onto a shoreline hosting the heart of U.S. refining capacity. When the waters eventually crested, more than 95% of gulf oil production and 88% of gas output was "shut in," industry parlance for closed off. The region accounts for more than one-quarter of U.S. domestic oil and gas production.

.. "More than three dozen oil platforms were capsized by the powerful storm", says Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary of the Interior. Earlier this week, she told Congress it will take "weeks or even months before we are back up to 100%."

.. One big worry: A quartet of major deep-water platforms that produce 10% of gulf oil 'suffered extensive damage which could take up to 3 to 6 months to bring back on line,' Watson said.

.. Ten refineries, which turn crude oil into products such as gasoline and heating oil, were closed by the storm; five others had to throttle back. Including some Midwestern facilities that closed because they ran dry of crude, 20% of U.S. refining capacity was affected.

It seems like they went up for no good reason? What has changed since it was a dollar a gallon higher?



answer: their profits went from Criminally high to Incredibly high.

:sarcasm:

it was so the Christmas retailers could grab a piece of the consumer discretionary dollar.

Capitalists taking care of capitalists. Yes, the oil barons will bleed you, but not bleed you dry. They need to leave some for the retail industry. They'll be back next year for more blood.

edited for grammar.

look for 70 dollar a barrel oil in Febuary.

Big Oil has to find a way to screw the customers, especially those in blue states.

Now the American people have faces (and targets) for their anger.

That scared them into backing down on the gouge. We know who they are.

Given that the Federal Government has totally forsaken their role in protecting the American people from corporate excess...a bright spotlight, removing their anonymity, was the only way to stop them.

Papers in front of Congress! We simply can't have the truth about robbing California, doing 9-11, invading Afghanistan to get the pipeline and invading Iraq to steal their oil come to be known. Not to mention our plans to gouge and plunder in the event of natural catastrophe.