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jolooote's avatar
jolooote
Explorer
Jan 20, 2016

Oil prices down.Y is a quart so high?

Hi all. Going to change the oil in my Class'A'. Went to the auto parts store to get the oil. Conventional. A Barrel (55 Gallons)sells for about $32 on the world market. WHY does it STILL cost about $5.00 a QUART???:M

30 Replies

  • That's been my question for years....the FIFO answer doesn't work for me. Price at barrel goes up a dollar, IMMEDIATELY the price per gallon at the pump goes up $.10. The price per barrel goes down $10.00, the price at the pump shows a decrease of $.10 MONTHS later.
  • same reason the oil company,s can raise lower gas price over night. as a oil guru told congress one time. because we can do what we want. heard him tell that to a congress meeting .its opec controling the price not the american company.s
  • GO buy yourself a barrel of that OIL.....

    Oh wait.
    That OIL is crude straight out of the ground.
    Would need to process it.......separate the impurities from the oil then separate the oil based on molecule size by distillation then deasphalting then solvent extraction then solvent dewaxing then finishing then you get a final base oil which has to be shipped to processing plant for additives, packaging then shipped to retail stores.
  • Additives and processing make up a sizeable chunk of the cost. Even at $100/barrel, the oil itself wasn't the majority of the cost of a quart.

    And as someone else said...when prices go up there is a lot of incentive and little to lose raising them quickly. When prices go down, there a lot of incentive and little to lose dropping them slowly.
  • ^^^^ My thoughts too; the oil in those bottles was based on the price at that time. Probably still a hefty profit. Just said on the news that air travel prices are the lowest of the year.
  • It probably costs more to bottle, label, package, ship, warehouse, deliver, stock, shelve, and price than it does to process the quart of oil that you're getting.
  • Why haven't the grocery and airline travel prices gone down?

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