Oil Prices (Page 2 of 3)

Slowly edging up then.  It cost you $30 per tank now - how much did it cost for a full tank say 8-10 years ago?

I wonder if it  the impact of oil prices will play out different in each country though?  I mean the public in different cultures US / UK / French etc. have different ways of dealing with these things.

Thing is...like you Lyra, the petrol price doesn't affect me in and off itself...I rarely have need to use the car now-a-days.  A full tank lasts me 2 to 3 weeks (at about  £32 per tank).  My living costs are fairly high though  £575 for rent per month, plus a few debts still remaining...but in all our living costs are faily low compaired to the "average" persons.

Interesting observations about Portland...

Chairman Jim Saxton (R-NJ)
Joint Economic Committee United States Congress
November 2005
OPEC AND THE HIGH PRICE OF OIL
A JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE STUDY

Joint Economic Committee 433 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: 202-226-3234 Fax: 202-226-3950 Internet Address: http://www.house.gov/jec/

Executive Summary

Crude oil is an abundant resource. Production cost in the Middle East is less than $5 per barrel and even in higher cost areas is nowhere near today’s price. A key reason for high oil prices is the artificial scarcity imposed on the market by the OPEC cartel, which controls 70 percent of the world’s known oil reserves and restricts how much oil reaches consumers.

OPEC also aggravates price volatility. It cannot manipulate its rate of output to match changing market conditions precisely and thus causes or magnifies swings in the supply and the price of oil. OPEC conceals important industry information and is not forthright in sharing its output plans and price objectives. Transparency International ranks most OPEC members near the bottom of its worldwide corruption index. Given the capital intensity of oil operations, the cartel's behavior increases risk and uncertainty for non-member investors and slows their market responses.

OPEC today barely produces more crude oil than it did in 1977. It held its output quotas below the level it had set in early 1998 until April of 2005. Yet by year-end 2005, OPEC’s net oil import revenue will have more than doubled over a 3-year period, reaching an estimated $430 billion, up from $193 billion in 2002. Developing countries are paying an increasing portion of this revenue. Non-OECD countries now account for 40 percent of world crude oil consumption.

Rising oil demand from developing countries has been met with output restriction and underdevelopment of oil reserves by OPEC. The resulting dramatic price increases likely are setting in motion market forces that eventually may bring the price down, as happened subsequent to the oil price peaks of the 1970’s. In the meantime, OPEC’s role in the price escalation should be exposed and not be obscured by misconceptions about oil resource depletion. There is plenty of oil in the ground.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea has come up w ith a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap.  Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive a ction to teach them that BUYERS control the
marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purcha sing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.  It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'l l explain how simple it is to reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 m illion people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to d o is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.