Fuel prices...

J

JamesTXSD

Active member
With the online sites that allow you to check fuel prices, we can determine the best place to buy while on the road. Here in deep south Texas, the average price for unleaded was $1.93 as of 10/28/08. Seems that the relief for diesel users has been slower in coming, with the best price we found of $3.17/gallon.

I understand that we are a society of unleaded users, compared to some countries, but since we bought the diesel pickup, we've seen diesel lower, then higher, then lower, and now much higher than unleaded. Any idea what driving force is at work here?

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
Dolphins AND $1.93 gas??? We are doing back flips when we find gas under $3.00 here...not fair!
JamesTXSD":9qzwaj1l said:
With the online sites that allow you to check fuel prices, we can determine the best place to buy while on the road. Here in deep south Texas, the average price for unleaded was $1.93 as of 10/28/08. Seems that the relief for diesel users has been slower in coming, with the best price we found of $3.17/gallon.

I understand that we are a society of unleaded users, compared to some countries, but since we bought the diesel pickup, we've seen diesel lower, then higher, then lower, and now much higher than unleaded. Any idea what driving force is at work here?

Best wishes,
Jim B.
Click to expand...
 
It's my fault, Jim. Diesel started to go up and stay right after I got the truck in '04. But there's hope. I just bought one of them yuppie Prius jobs and stopped driving the truck to work, so they got no reason to keep the diesel price up.
 
This is pure speculation, Jim: gasoline is more of a "consumer commodity" and responds to the market preferences of folks who have more ability to reduce their discretionary spending: commuters double up; families do less traveling, etc. So, the price drops when demand drops. OTOH, diesel is heavily used by the trucking trade, where demand is less dependent on discretionary spending: if your livelihood depends on making that Freightliner hum from Dallas to Seattle, you can't back off. Result: demand has remained relatively stable for diesel, and the price has remained high. Not as high as it was, but it has not dropped like the price of gasoline has.
 
I think that Dave has some sound logic in his post and I understand that the global demand for diesel is very high, with European countries giving big tax credits to those buying the clean, high-mileage diesel engines available in small cars there.

That being said, Jim's question still stands - why the big fluctuation in diesel prices? I was amazed when I filled up the big Dodge Ram yesterday with diesel for $2.89 a gallon. Gas is $2.29 here this week.

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Jim,
Here in Pa. lowest gas seen on Sunday 2.45 per gallon in the Lancaster area. I would guess the oil companies might be concerned about the country going into a depression / recession. Who knows what the election has to do with it. Maybe Bush and the Texans thought to back off to help McCain's chances. Who knows about the gas / diesel fuel usual price relationship. I just think they were working on the supply and demand idea and seeing what they could get away with. Our heating oil guy asked us if we wanted to lock in at 4.50 a gallon. I declined and now home heating oil is down to 2.45 (no road taxes). Some people locked in at the high numbers and bought a winters supply based on the lock in. :amgry Where ever you are going have a great trip.
D.D.
 
One factor to consider is the effect of the Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel ULSD on prices. There are only a limited number of refineries that have been converted to make this fuel. This reduced supply makes the price go up. The other refineries are still churning out the high sulphur fuel for sale to the South American market. There is no economic incentive to bring new refineries on line to make more ULSD since they are winning both ways now: the reduced supply of high sulphur fuel has meant increased profits in that market too.
 
Here in Wichita, KS, we have several refineries fairly close - some big ones just across the border in Oklahoma. Regular unleaded just dropped to $1.98 in some places and generally below $2.09 most local places.

Diesel is cheaper closer to Oklahoma. It was $3.06 at the border last Sunday and now $3.20 or so most places in Wichita or below.

I have, over time, asked many times about the diesel price disparity and here are the salient points mentioned back:

1 - although less refining is needed for diesel, it does contain much more available energy than does gasoline. New, higher pressure diesel engines are starting to tap some of that energy. The new VW TDI is an example. I think it's rated at over 69 mpg. For years, the US high diesel engine standard has kept foreign diesels to a minimum.

2 - the cleaner diesel fuel laws (low sulphur requirement) have "increased the costs of refining" per providers, however, I have spoken to Oklahoma truckers who are swamped hauling the new fertilizer away from those refineries. This new ferilizer bonanza is the refineries selling off the part that they remove from the raw diesel to make it cleaner. Basically they are claiming huge costs in refining cleaner diesel on one hand, but making a bundle selling off the by-products removed from the diesel in the cleaning process.

3 - taxes used to be favorable to diesel fuel users, but have steadily increased for years with states trying to fund road improvements and maintenance from fuel taxes.

4 - diesel is the world wide standard for equipment used in new infrastructure, highways, buildings, factories as well as for transport in trucks, trains, and freighters. As such, the demand for diesel can still by high even though local Americans have cut back on their driving. The surge in building in China prior to the Olympics is an example of high world diesel demand.

so, those are some factors in higher diesel prices.

John
 
Best price up here (Alaska) where we pump and refine our own is $3.19, :evil: sucks; diesel is at $3.99.

Problem is we have no competition between refiners and they set the wholesale price.

Our only alternative is to stop buying gas and walk or ride a bicycle to work on our frozen street in subzero weather, not an attractive alternative.

Perhaps Sara will look into the price fixing when she comes home from the campaign trail. :xlol
 
Some economists suggest that the movement of gas prices at the pump is affected by the state of the economy, as well as the amount of driving people are doing. When the economy slumps, and manufacturing is down, there is less demand for energy and with less demand and equivalent supply, prices drop.

This apparently doesn't relate to the difference in deisel and gasoline prices - just the price of crude oil before refining.
 
El and Bill":2vtz1isz said:
Some economists suggest that the movement of gas prices at the pump is affected by the state of the economy, as well as the amount of driving people are doing. When the economy slumps, and manufacturing is down, there is less demand for energy and with less demand and equivalent supply, prices drop.

This apparently doesn't relate to the difference in deisel and gasoline prices - just the price of crude oil before refining.
Click to expand...

Hi Bill,

Earlier this year (may have even been last year), I grumbled about the cost of fuel and what it would do to the economy. Seems to me that our economic downturns in the last few decades have occurred after rapid increases in fuel prices. Those economists you refer to may believe that gas prices are affected by the economy, I think it is the other way around.

When I posed this question here, my own theory had been that of diesel necessity for moving goods, thus no need for oil companies to ease off those prices.

We got ourselves more liquid after this last spike and before the market tanked. Might have been just a hunch, but it paid off for us. OK, "paid" may not be the operative word, but "didn't lose as much" is more accurate.

All things considered, I don't see the rationale for the large disparity in price, other than: because they can.

Jim B.
 
We got gas on the water today it was $3.45 gallon we only bought $35 worth ouch . I will be filling my 5 gallon containers up and gassing up that way at $2.60 gallon for 87 octane and $2.75 for 89 octane . Thank goodness we have a c-dory we can go out for a few hours on 5-10 gallons or so. I've been using about 4.6 gallons an hour at 4200 rpm at 20-21 mph cruise. That f115 is sure good on gas.
 
Drove to our cottage today -- 150 miles -- gas went from $2.59 to by the time we made it to the cottage it was $2.35.

Contrast that to when I went 8 hours to pick up our 2008 CD22 in the middle of September -- because of the Hurricane (3000 miles away) -- prices started out around $3.85 and our last fillup was at $4.25. That was a month and a half ago -- Crazy..
 
Pensacola lowest price today was $2.29 for 87 and diesel was about 94 cents more in on the road service stations. I suspect that marine fuel is some what like road fuel, and that is that the price of the fuel is set by the cost when the retailer buys it from the wholesaler.

World wide demand for fuel is down because of the economy--transportation down because of the decrease in goods delivered. There has been some concern that there will not be enough shipping available when the world economy gets up to full capacity in a few years (whenever). There is a shortage of ships--and the newest ships are longer with deeper draft, and many harbors on the East Coast have not been dredged recently--and the newer, deeper draft ships cannot access all of the ports. Indirectly this will dirve up transport costs, since more be from the larger ports by on the road trucks.

My understanding is that diesel inheriently has about 30% more energy than gasoline, and this is a more effecient fuel. Isn't the 69 mpg VW a hybrid? I believe it has 74 hp (compare with the 300 hp that may cars of the same size may have. If you look at the diesel Dodge Sprints--the RV's on this chassis got 22 to 24 mpg until the "latest" cleaner diesels came out about 2 years ago-now we are hearing about 16 to 18 mpg in the same vehicles.
 
If you want to talk about odd, here is one. In Hawaii, at Costco, the price of unleaded was about $3.12 a gallon as week or so ago. What is funny, odd, or strange is they have little refining capability and no oil. All of it comes from good old Alaska, or comes out of Califormia to my knowledge. Here in Alaska, we have our own oil right here in Cook Inlet, the pipeline oil, and our own refineries. The price of unleaded last week was just over $4.00 a gallon. It is now just about $3.20. At least fish is cheap.........
 
From wikipidia

Canada
Fuel taxes in Canada can vary greatly between locales. On average, about one-third of the total price of gas at the pump is tax. Excise taxes on gasoline and diesel are collected both federal and provincial governments, as well as by some select municipalities (Montreal, Vancouver, and Victoria); with combined excise taxes varying from 16.2 ¢/L (73.6 ¢/imperial gal; 61.2 ¢/US gal) in the Yukon to 30.5 ¢/L ($1.386/imperial gal; $1.153/US gal) in Vancouver. As well, the federal government and some provincial governments (Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Quebec) collect sales tax (GST and PST) on top of the retail price and the excise taxes.[4]

Iam not lover of oil companies but they are not the only ones sticking it to you.
 
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