Fuel Prices............WHY ??

The more we cut back on gas and diesel the more the oil companies can export. I believe refined gas has been our #1 export. They can sell it for more over sea. Our laws ban export of oil but not refined products.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304049904579516121276626720

Here is what you get from one 42 gallon barrel of crude.

The demand for gas has been dropping due to more fuel efficient cars, car pooling, more use of mass transit etc. Demand for diesel, on the other hand is steady or increasing.

Diesel is actually cheaper to produce than gasoline is. I'm told the reason it is more expensive is because they don't sell as much of it. It's a volume thing. They still have to maintain the pipelines and the distribution network and all just like gas, but with a lower sales volume they still have to charge more to maintain the distribution network. I have no idea how true that is as I'm not in that business, but it does make sense.

It's the same concept that if you run a small retail business you may find that the prices you have to pay from your wholesale distributer for your product are more expensive than what you can go to Costco and pay for the item retail at Costco. You and Costco may be buying from the same place, but they are buying millions while you're buying dozens so they can sell it a lot cheaper than you can.

supercub wrote:
Gas prices have dropped nearly a dollar in our area..........and diesel has dropped about 10 cents.........why hasn't diesel prices maintained the same decreases as gasoline?
Brian

I'm going to guess it has something to do with heating oil demand as winter approaches.