From Stark
Republican presidential candidates have renewed a common claim: Unleashing American oil drillers could give cash-strapped motorists relief at the gas pump.
Leaving aside the question of whether cheap gasoline and heavy gasoline consumption are sustainable behaviors that considers the fuel needs of future generations — would this actually work?
Well, we don’t have to argue and speculate. There is data. The Associated Press has taken a look at that data. The answer seems to be clear: There is no correlation between U.S. oil production and fuel prices.
Closer to home, we might also take note of the fact that today’s average gasoline price in Bellingham — $4.17 for regular — is painful but has not yet exceeded the previous record of $4.50. That record was set in June 2008, after almost eight years with a former Texas oil man in the White House. (Data from AAA Washington.)
Well, I am glad the Associated Press has finally looked at the data available to them for over 20 years.
There are many things that impact the cost of gasoline, the menu’s refineries are required to refine gas with has an huge impact on the cost of the refined product, those menu’s are ever changing and very expensive, the value of the dollar; since oil is pegged to the dollar and if we see a devalue of the dollar (let’s say 13% inflation for example if a barrel when for $100/barrel in 2010 and you have a devalue of the dollar of 13% in 2011, you now have a cost of $113.00/barrel), and then there is also the taxes on gasoline all of which have an impact on the price of gasoline.
But for anyone to say that the available supply of any product does not have an impact on the value of that product must be doing so without a fundamental understanding of economics and must really have a political agenda not tied to reality.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned Tuesday that crude oil prices may spike by up to 30 percent if Iranian supplies were disrupted, causing “serious consequences” for the global economy….
“A sudden and brutal rise in the price of oil” from Brent crude’s current levels of $125 a barrel “would have serious consequences on the global economy”
http://www.france24.com/en/20120320-imf-warns-oil-risk-iran
I am sure more domestic availability of crude would never help a situation like this!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Methinks Henry Clay summed this data up well:
“Statistics are no substitute for judgment.”
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
The reality is that the markets are responding to global supply and global demand, not just US supply and demand.
AFY: What do you think of the suggestion that we ought to be saving some petroleum for future generations, instead of drilling up the countryside to create short-term abundance and low prices?
The facts are, the U.S. does not have enough supply, even if we drilled every square inch of soil including AFY’s backyard, to impact the world price of oil.
You do not pull up to a pump and choose “Alaskan Gas” over “Nigerian”.
We export more gas than we import, TODAY, yet the prices climb.
“Just the facts Ma’am.”
- Sgt. Joe Friday
I’s just wonder if Seth Borenstein and Jack Gillum made any contributions to Obama election campaign in 2008 cause they sure have made an in-kind one to him in 2012, don’t ya know!
We have multiple times the known reserves of Saudi why not bring those jobs here now and keep our dollars here too instead of sending them to Saudi.
In the mean time while we make this country into the energy heaven it should be with all of the new tax revenue derives from such we could then invest some of which into finding other energy sources thus making future generations not so dependent on carbon base energy!
BTW John you know have to find immunity to global supply and demand; DRILL MORE AT HOME!!!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Some of the posters may be old enough to remember the consequences of oil import quotas that depleted US reserves in the run-up to the 1973-1974 oil crisis. See “The End of Energy” by Michael Graetz, MIT Press.
The United States in 2011 exported more petroleum products, on an annual basis, than it imported for the first time since 1949, but American refiners still imported large, although declining, amounts of crude oil, according to full-year trade data from EIA’s Petroleum Supply Monthly February report. (http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/monthly/)
“According to the Institute for Energy Research, we have more than 1.4 trillion barrels of oil (millions of related jobs too) that is technically recoverable in the United States with existing technology. The largest deposits are located offshore, in portions of Alaska and in shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain states. So the United States has more recoverable oil than the rest of the non-North American world combined. The Heritage Foundation says this is enough to fuel every passenger car in the nation for 430 years. Therefore, “it is merely semantics — not a scientific assessment of what America has the capacity to produce — that allows critics to claim repeatedly that America is running out of energy.”
When you add in recoverable resources from Canada and Mexico, the total recoverable oil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels. “To put this in context, Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of oil in proved reserves.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=50085
430 years does not sound like we are running out anytime soon, for some unknown reason methinks these studies of doom and gloom are akin to the studies of global warming which have been found to be bogus thru & thru!
Could it be a related agenda?
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Just think how much we could export if we really went after it!
What we should do is like what they do in Alaska and give an oil dividend at the end of each year to every tax payer in the country after we pay off our debt, heck one day in the future our dividend might be bigger than our tax bite, don’t ya know!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Nearly every man, woman and child in Alaska hit the jackpot today, just as they have for the past 35 years. The state announced the annual dividend from the state’s multibillion-dollar oil wealth fund.
Just for living in the Last Frontier, residents will receive $1,174 this year from the Alaska Permanent Fund…
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/09/alaskans-yearly-oil-dividend-is-1174/1
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
A big reason that oil companies have been importing oil is because we don’t have a pipeline to East Coast refineries. For that reason, East coast refineries have been shutting down at a rapid rate.
If the Keystone pipeline were allowed to go through, we could ship the crude from the Gulf coast to the East Coast refineries, but Obama would have to move awfully fast. He has dragged his feet on this one for too long.
Obama exempted eleven countries from the Iranian sanctions, which means that he has pretty much caved to Iran. So, I guess all we can do now is cross our fingers and hope that nothing happens to start a nuclear war in the Middle East.
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