GOOD NEWS

[eagle19952]

NEW YORK The U.S. has so much crude that it is running out of places to put it, and that could drive oil and gasoline prices even lower in the coming months.

For the past seven weeks, the United States has been producing and importing an average of 1 million more barrels of oil every day than it is consuming. That extra crude is flowing into storage tanks, especially at the country's main trading hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, pushing U.S. supplies to their highest point in at least 80 years, the Energy Department reported last week.

If this keeps up, storage tanks could approach their operational limits, known in the industry as "tank tops," by mid-April and send the price of crude and probably gasoline too plummeting.

"The fact of the matter is we are running out of storage capacity in the U.S.," Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Citibank, said at a recent symposium at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Morse has suggested oil could fall all the way to $20 a barrel from the current $50. At that rock-bottom price, oil companies, faced with mounting losses, would stop pumping oil until the glut eased. Gasoline prices would fall along with crude, though lower refinery production, because of seasonal factors and unexpected outages, could prevent a sharp decline.

[Ed Hackenbruch]

 Of course then they will say that there is a shortage of oil and will jack the price of gas way up again.

[bobofthenorth]

Let's all hope that one of the outcomes of these lower prices is the death of your ethanol mandate. I believe you had a bipartisan bill to that effect introduced today.

[Dave5Cs]

Now you all are just being silly. Who would think that Big Oil companies and the Government are in cahoots!...........
Now you will probably see refineries having problems and have to shutdown until things improve. Lunch lines for employees and the poor, poor investors will not be able to but that Ferrari for their Daughter.
Here in Roseville California we see at least 3 time a week in the morning there will be a minimum of 30 to 100 tankers with oil in them move from south to head up over the summit with them. write to the local politicians about how we would like to see them re routed through another town and they just say its good for the country?? But dangerous when they tip over next to the American river....

[gumpy]

Yep. Heard it today. A fire at a refinery in California, and in the last 4 days our gas prices in MN have gone up $0.25 and expected to go another $0.30.

[Iceni John]

Yep. Heard it today. A fire at a refinery in California, and in the last 4 days our gas prices in MN have gone up $0.25 and expected to go another $0.30.

I sometimes wonder whether some of these "accidents" at refineries that inevitably cause prices to rise are maybe not always so accidental . . .

John

[daddyoften]

It's not all good! It's a double edge sword here. It's great to have to pay less at the pump but..... The lower the price of crude the less work we have. A lot of places have cut their hours and they are thankful they still have jobs. A lot has shut down. And it trickles down. Everything around here is dependant on oil one way or another. Some oil field's have a breakeven price of $92 a barrel, which they have already shut down, the lowest I've seen is at $52 a barrel. If they aren't making money then they shut down.... It's sad. I hate to say it but I hope something changes soon to get the prices to go back up just a bit. Around 60- 80 sounds ideal.

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[eagle19952]

It's not all good! It's a double edge sword here. It's great to have to pay less at the pump but..... The lower the price of crude the less work we have. A lot of places have cut their hours and they are thankful they still have jobs. A lot has shut down. And it trickles down. Everything around here is dependant on oil one way or another. Some oil field's have a breakeven price of $92 a barrel, which they have already shut down, the lowest I've seen is at $52 a barrel. If they aren't making money then they shut down.... It's sad. I hate to say it but I hope something changes soon to get the prices to go back up just a bit. Around 60- 80 sounds ideal.

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Oil Boom towns.... lived it for almost 40 years blew the first 20 and finally figured it  out . I will say that the good hands were always working.

The Pipeliner's Prayer... Dear Lord give me one more boom, and I promise not to piss it away this time.  

[belfert]

Yep. Heard it today. A fire at a refinery in California, and in the last 4 days our gas prices in MN have gone up $0.25 and expected to go another $0.30.

The reason Minnesota gas prices went up is because gasoline stockpiles are down while oil stockpiles are increasing.  Refineries are running well below capacity right now.  These guys aren't stupid and they know that producing less means higher prices.

It still sucks.  I paid an exta $5 to fill my car because of the price increase.

[Jon]

It is easy to get upset with oil companies but they are like every other business in that they are in business solely to make money.

Nobody should get their shorts in a wad about oil companies because as a percentage of sales their profits are actually relatively modest. Instead look at the government taxes imposed on fuel purchases. It never goes down, and in fact there are strong efforts underway to increase how much money the government takes.

Every one of us has the option of not using oil. We can stop driving our buses. We can combine trips to save fuel, we can buy more fuel efficient vehicles, we can walk, ride bikes, and we can exist on a diet of roots and twigs. Or we can be pretty happy we are in a period of much lower fuel prices. It hurt when diesel was over $5. I really hated to see the pump up to $800 or more when I refueled.

[CrabbyMilton]

Jon, you are the voice of common sense and logic and right on target with that. People have been programmed to hate big oil and any other business then they cry that there are not enough jobs but I digress. Oil is a worldwide commodity and prices will eb and flow. Fuel prices include many taxes on the local, state and federal level so do people factor that in when they start the oil bashing? We have not had a new refinery in the country for many decades which if we had would help answer the demand. But we think that driving these little corn poper electric cars is going to help? Some day we will have 100% electric cars that are as reliable and big as the biggest sedan out there. But the technology has a ways to go to over come the "they stink" factor. But until that time...Drill baby drill.

[Jon]

I get as upset as anyone when I see the numbers go higher and higher on the pump. But as a society we give a free ride in terms of huge profits to drug companies, software companies, and a number of others who make oil company profits look like chump change.

We have to be pretty careful about bashing oil companies because the environmentalists that would like to shut down production and move to "green" energy are ultimately going to make it difficult or impossible to drive our buses either due to increased costs (they believe in taxing oil heavily) or lack of supply. Let's not add our voices against big oil. It sure is not in our best interests.

[carhauler]

You can fight back against the U.S. oil companies by simply purchasing their stocks...Exxon Mobile, Hess and Occidental are all trading at discounts right now. 
Or you can continue to whine about what the oil companies and the Feds. are doing to us!

[luvrbus]

Refinerys are like buses they shut down 3 times a year for maintenance so you get a spike in prices what is the big deal just hang on

I don't see anyone bashing the farmers for trying to get price of corn and soy up for the Bio ingredients the Government requires for gasoline and diesel and we pay for that with tax credits and subsidized payments . I don't deal in oil by the barrel but I have bought some units of diesel before and thinking about doing it again  it beats the banks for payout on the investment     

[eagle19952]

If I paid $5 last year and i pay $2.50 this year then I really paid $3.75 both times