The Price of Diesel

bscutt · Post by **bscutt** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:54 pm

Simple - if fuel prices rise for petroleum fuel, the industry believes it can raise prices for everything else. We are a captive audience and they have us by the ****s. And the spiral continues. What can we do in protest, stop buying fuel? I work too far from home to bicycle in and there's no public transportation between here and there. Driving slower and gentler and I'm now getting 48 mpg vs 42 in my 06 Jetta, but at 4.20 or more for diesel that's only minor consolation. And our friends in europe have it so much worse than we do, I don't feel justified in complaining. So we bite the bullet and drive less, slower, and just deal with it. At least I know where my raise will go!

JRM · Post by **JRM** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:55 pm

At least you got a raise, our sales are very slow- huge pay cut here

tylernt · Post by **tylernt** » Fri May 09, 2008 12:28 am

What's wrong with diesel prices?! They're supposed to be going down, I winced a few weeks ago when I filled up at $4.25, thinking it would go down the next day... but now it's $4.45.

goofy golf · Post by **goofy golf** » Fri May 09, 2008 6:13 am

Diesel fuel is $4.50/gal here and going up daily. I think they should make ALL road fuel gas/diesel the SAME price. I think there would be alot more people raising caine.

All my vehicles and tractors run on diesel. I keep buying petroleum jelly to ease the pain, but thats made from oil and going up in price too.

Remember the days when diesel was cheap..

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Fri May 09, 2008 8:56 am

goofy golf wrote:I think they should make ALL road fuel gas/diesel the SAME price. I think there would be alot more people raising caine.

Well, the gasoline market is a separate market from the diesel/heating oil market. That's why you see they have different prices. Different refining process, distribution, different uses and demands, thus, different market prices.

JRM · Post by **JRM** » Sat May 10, 2008 8:54 pm

Yup, and oil closed at 126.00 a barrell today! That will result in another .25 cents a gallon by next week! Plus the S-15 diesel is much more costly to manafacture than last years fuel.

Post by **Fatmobile** » Sun May 11, 2008 11:36 pm

Yep, there is only one way to get the majority of Americans to reduce fuel consumption;:
Raise the price.
Before any household can go off grid or become sustainable they have to figure out how to reduce consumption.
It's the same on a nation wide scale.
Before we can move toward sustainable, locally produced fuels we will have to learn to conserve energy.
It's the first step... not one most would willingly take,
so they need to be pushed a little.
I want to see when keeping up with the Jones' means solar;
panels; electric and thermal, water catches, gardens...

instead of who has the fattest SUVs.

JIM S · Post by **JIM S** » Mon May 12, 2008 5:46 am

IF every one quit bying shell would thay lower price or go out of bisness???? then move on to next one.. jim

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Mon May 12, 2008 9:26 am

A boycott on the scale needed to run one oil company out of business would be nearly impossible. Afterall, Shell is an enormous global company, so if running Shell out of the USA was even remotely possible, they would still exist overseas. Highly unlikely to run one of these out of business. The prices we pay for gas and diesel are dictated by supply and demand, and the oil future's market. Oil companies may try to cause prices to rise or demand to change for various markets, but the price of oil is set by the futures market. The only way to get cheaper fuel costs is for America to allow oil companies to drill for their own oil, flooding the market with supply, which would reduce the prices for oil. The other way is for the world (yes, it's not just the US demand for oil anymore) to lower it's demand for oil which would lower the demand, lowering the price. If an alternate energy source came along that was cheap and the mass markets embraced this new technology, this could likely effect the price of oil on the market as it would effectively lower the overall demand for oil so the price would come down for oil.

Personally, I don't buy gas from Citgo, unless I have to. I'll even pay more to get it somewhere else (we have one Citgo station in town that is always slow to raise it's prices). I have nothing against their fuel, station owners or anything like that. But Citgo is owned by the Government of Venezula and mr. Hugo Chavez hates this country. So, I don't send my $.06 on the dollar profits to the government of a country that hate's the one I love, so I give my business to some other companies like BP, Shell, Texaco, etc, where the profits from the fuel sale don't go to governments, but rather the investors who own stock for these companies. We the people with our 401k investments etc are the people that ultimately own the oil companies.

surfcam · Post by **surfcam** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:57 pm

I would add ConocoPhillips to the list as well. There revamping a refinery to take Canadian Tar Sands Oil. It takes one barrel to get a barrel and half of oil. Its one of the most polluting ways to get oil. Conventional oil is one barrel for 20. I totally agree with Fat's take on the price at the pumps. The Brinks truck rolled up in front of my house again last week. They wanted me to go to the Tar Sands but I resisted. Here's some more food for thought.

ttp://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

bscutt · Post by **bscutt** » Wed May 14, 2008 12:20 pm

Fatmobile is 100% on. Reduce consumption, find alternate energy sources. Much as I hate paying more for fuel, I feel real good when I'm driving my 48mpg TDI to work at roughly 10 cents/mile and I see the boneheads not only driving their SUVs, but driving them aggressively. I would guess their cost is at least 30 cents/mile for gas. Maybe if gas hit $10/gallon they would stop driving big tanks around with one person in it and flooring it at every stoplight. Then again, maybe I'm giving them too much credit to make the association between driving like that and how much they pay for fuel. I just hope there's some left for my kids when they reach my age.

As for boycotting, one of my offices is adjacent to a large fuel distribution center. Every day, every different brand of fuel transport truck pulls up to the same pumps as any other and fills up their tanks. You see Shell and BP and others at the "Exxon" tanks, so you are kidding yourselves if you think there's any difference between companies. Only a few only use their "own" fuel and I'm sure they are all buying from each other as the need arises.

rallydiesel · Post by **rallydiesel** » Wed May 14, 2008 5:22 pm

+

=

Ziptar · Post by **Ziptar** » Wed May 14, 2008 6:41 pm

rallydiesel wrote:

Company called MDI already on that one... It works even..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFDqcu8oJ4

Problem is once it catches on the Gubment will start charging everyone "Air Tax"

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Wed May 14, 2008 7:25 pm

There was a show on the Discovery channel or something like that on alternate fuel vehicles. This was on it and I thought it was quite interesting. The air pressures stored in the tank are stratospheric in numbers. Don't remember specifically, but extremely high from what I remember. An interesting alternate fuel concept.

Post by **Fatmobile** » Thu May 15, 2008 12:25 am

I saw on the news that we have reduced energy consumption 7% since last year....
might have just been vehicle fuels but
Yee haw, on our way to sustainability.