Breakdown of Gas Prices

[Cold_Zero]

There has been much talk, debate and theories about why gas prices are so high. I heard an interesting breakdown on the price of gasoline at the pump. The segment took an average price of $2.00 a gallon for gasoline at the pump. They broke down who the major players were in the industry and their average takes from the price at the pump.

Oil Company (extracts and ships crude oil)- $1.00 a gallonRefinery (East of Rockies)- .40 per gallonRefinery (West of Rockies)- .60 per gallonTaxes- .40 per gallonRetailer- .05 per gallon

The Oil Company (extracts and ships crude oil) has seen a .20 per gallon increase due to the high prices. The retailer has only seen a .5-.10 per 5-10 gallon fill up.

I guess we shouldn’t blame the retailers for making money off the increase in gasoline prices.

[Bunta240]

Grrrrr those greedy bastards.

[Rex]

Uh, those prices sound right if the retailer is looking for "sympathy" and the retail, happens to be Shell, BP, Exxon or Sunoco, who are all Oil Company/Refineries.

Though the details of my above statement may be flimsy, I'll tell you, selling gas makes gas stations BIG money, don't let them fool you. I pumped gas for a winter/spring and the owner told me if I ever was not able to make it, he'd pump it himself, before he'd loose the money the pumps bring in for 1 day. We had full serve for the same price as self serve.

[[Zero-S]]

We had full serve for the same price as self serve.

That alone will draw customers.

[Rex]

I'm sure it helped, but I pumped by myself from 2:30 until 11:00, and it wasn't THAT busy. We didn't take any of the Gas/Oil company credit cards.

[[Zero-S]]

So cash only?

[Rex]

We took major credit cards, but this was back late 80's early 90's when everyoine had a Shell or BP card. But we did do ALOT of cash business.

[Cold_Zero]

Uh, those prices sound right if the retailer is looking for "sympathy" and the retail, happens to be Shell, BP, Exxon or Sunoco, who are all Oil Company/Refineries.

I am sure that the segment was not meant to provide sympathy to the big corporations like Shell, BP, Exxon and Sunoco. The segment appeared on NPR which is typically not a huge fan of multinational corporations. I would like to see the roll of the franchise owner in relation to the Oil Companies that you have listed. To see how much independence or autonomy they have in their day to day business practices.

[Rex]

I'll look for details, but at 1 time, the franchise owner was not allowed to "set" the gas prices and was purely paid a "nice" stipend per gallon, regardless of the grade of gas. There were incentives for increase in gallons sold and market share increases. Some of these practices were challenged/changed when the monopoly law suits in the early 90's got alot of "press".

The monopoly law suits were when a "Oil Company" backed station would drop their gas prices to lower than the Mom & Pop conveniece store was paying for gas, and by doing so would run them out of business.

[Jesda]

I dont quite understand the news reports. They say gas went up 14 cents in 14 days. Okay... but in 3 days gas here went from $2.29 to $2.09. And its still going down -- I'm looking forward! Meanwhile all the pundits on cable and network news say that these higher prices are permanent.

We wont be seeing 99-cent gas again in St Louis like we did in the summer of 2001, but I think more price drops are on the way. Even if Iraq is never entirely stable, all the panic that caused investors to drive up oil prices will eventually subside.

At the Amoco station today with my mom we watched the guy change the sign, regular went from $1.95 to $1.94. I gave him a honk and a thumbs up (I hope the guy didnt think I thought he was hot or something, you never know these days).

-Jesda

[Mr1der]

I so wish I had a functioning gasoline fuel cell....