RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

The production and usage level of crude oil are about the same right now. Natural gas in America is selling for 1/3 price per million BTU's as in most of the rest of the world. Production is ramped down now becasue the US can't export it. Countries like Russia are making a killing by selling theirs at the higher price. We have the ability to make a whole lots more, use it for transportation fuels, and export it to help reduce our trade deficits. Throttling the free market always leads to problems.

There is no shortage of crude. Just a shortage of low priced crude.

Wait and see where the price of natural gas goes when exports are allowed.

Exporting gasoline reduces supply of gasoline here in the US, increasing price by the law of supply and demand due to the finite refinery capacity. Gasoline demand in the US is steadily dropping so the excess should drop the price. Oil companies are propping up the price by exporting it.

Your statement appears to make sense except for the fact that the supply and demand is on the crude oil, not the gasoline. All of the gasoline we need is refined out of the crude oil (about 75% of the cost of the finished product.). There is no shortage of gasoline, the shortage (caused by OPEC) is in the crude oil. The refiners now have the ability to make more than they can sell and are left with the following choice... do we buy imported crude oil, keep the refinery running and make gasoline to sell to South America or close the refinery and lay off the employees? 5 years ago before the recession, we had to import gasoline as well as crude oil. Now with demand for gasoline in America down, are exporting the excess capacity. Worldwide,supply and demand for crude oil remains at about the same balanced levels. What we could do to lower prices is increase the supply of crude oil which would lower it's price and thereby reduce the price of gasoline. I hope I clarified this, if not, please let me know and I will try to make it clearer.

cekkk wrote:
You're right, Tomman. But congress has been shoving unwanted weapons, bases, etc., down DoD's throat since the beginning of the Republic. God forbid some congressman's district should lose a defense dollar.

You were fortunate to see that one before the Mod deleted it, LOL.

LindsayRichards wrote:
You mistake crude oil and gasoline. Due to reduced usage and prices, we have some excess refining capacity for gasoline. We take imported oil, refine it into products such as plastics, gasoline and the like and export it to foreign countries. This provides jobs for American that would otherwise not have them. This is a good thing. The price of gasoline is not affected. Think of it as manufacturing. The same for those distillates.

No mistake here other than your interpretation of what I am saying. Exporting gasoline reduces supply of gasoline here in the US, increasing price by the law of supply and demand due to the finite refinery capacity. Gasoline demand in the US is steadily dropping so the excess should drop the price. Oil companies are propping up the price by exporting it.

You're right, Tomman. But congress has been shoving unwanted weapons, bases, etc., down DoD's throat since the beginning of the Republic. God forbid some congressman's district should lose a defense dollar.

Recently they made some bunker C replacement that was for an aircraft carrier battle group that was even more expensive than this. It is all politics and we foot the bill.

We think we are paying a lot for fuel. The Navy is paying $59/gallon. Wait, we are paying for that too. Sequester?

“In March, Gevo entered into a contract with the Defense Logistics Agency to supply the U.S. Army with 3,650 gallons of renewable jet fuel to be delivered by the second quarter of 2013,” Gevo announced this week in its first quarter financial report. “This initial order may be increased by 12,500 gallons. All shipments will be at a fixed price of $59 per gallon during the initial testing phase. These shipments are in addition to the renewable jet fuel supplied to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the U.S. Navy (USN).”

New fracking regulations are to be released within several weeks by the Dept of the Interior. This should have an affect one way or the other depending on which way they go. There is a lot of pent up drilling awaiting these long in the pipeline regulations.

New Regulation article

We were at $3.27 then a couple days later where at $3.49 and now back to $3.37 for some reason.