Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At $5.00 a gallon it is still cheaper than beer. I want beer prices to go down Brew your own!  I got mine down to $.50 a gallon for a good lager using my own yeast stock.  Damn hops is the most expensive part.   I was thinking the same thing with respect to fuel. (VW turbodiesel here)

Sidenote: If there is ever a real oil crisis, you guys will suddenly be SOL...

Production will focus on 87 octane motor gasoline, and everything else will end up biting the bullet...

They can only produce so much retail fuel from available oil,. and it will be done in order of priority, with gasoline being #1 - the prices of everything else will go up MUCH faster...

www.globalexchange.org/countries/brazil/3776.html

a shit country like Brazil figured out how not to become dependant on mideast oil.
But we cant?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Please help me guys, I don't want to loose my man card.  I like my v-8 vic. "Man Card"?  Don't you mean stupid card? Okay tough guy break it down for me what would you do? I'm apparently a little slow... You have a car, it's paid off, it gets 20 mpg. When do I pull the trigger, trade it in to get an extra 4-8 extra mpg? Don't forget the car is paid off, so  buying a new car will require a financing for an additional $5K-$15K.   So what would you do... keep the car or trade it?

Game...Set...Match-good job!  5-15K might be a little low nowadays, but you made an excellent point.

HH

HH

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At $5.00 a gallon it is still cheaper than beer. I want beer prices to go down Brew your own!  I got mine down to $.50 a gallon for a good lager using my own yeast stock.  Damn hops is the most expensive part.   I was thinking the same thing with respect to fuel. (VW turbodiesel here) Sidenote: If there is ever a real oil crisis, you guys will suddenly be SOL... Production will focus on 87 octane motor gasoline, and everything else will end up biting the bullet... They can only produce so much retail fuel from available oil,. and it will be done in order of priority, with gasoline being #1 - the prices of everything else will go up MUCH faster...

No, they will only make JP8 because that is what our military runs on.  And I am not worried, just well prepared.  I can go 72 miles on a gallon of 87 octane.

1 gallon of skim milk in store = $3.29

1 gallon of 87 ethanol at pump = $2.59.9

Its those damn Holsteins! Lets go to war with the cows!

No silage for you......

Quoted: Quoted: Hit the nail on the head there, as I understand it, there are 84 different blends of gas, and that is stupid, we need to settle on one, and stick with it. That would increase refinery cap. by a huge amount, and go a long way in reducing prices. W has tried to get this done,  the enviro libs, have killed it. We could choose the least polluting, and refine only it, and still be way ahead of where we are now. 84 seems rather high for unleaded gasoline. i seem to recall it being less than 20 nationwide..including summer and winter formulations. if you are talking about all the possible transportation fuels though..

Yep, not just gas.  The blends, and low sulfur summer gas are different depending on the city. I know Birmingham's is different from Atlanta. Charolette, Orlando etc.. all have different blends, and they receive their gas from the same refineries. There is no logical reason for that. They should pic which ever is "the best" and produce it for everyone. This would increase the refineries ability to produce, as all their refining efforts  would be for one blend.

I think the current high crude prices are being driven by speculation more than actual market/supply conditions. What needs to be done first is to reduce the number of formulations necessary nation wide from dozens down to 10 or so. More refineries are needed asap as well. Crude prices are often artificially inflated these days by speculators buying petroleum futures. I for one hope they lose their shirts (not that I have anything against investing and profitting in general, but the current situation could cause a lot of grief). Short of increasing the domestic supply, there isn't much that can be done about it.

In any case, I don't see $5 a gallon any time this year, even if there were an Iran war. Hell, half the trouble makers in Iraq are taking their marching orders from Iran. If we tied up (or better yet eliminated) the current Iranian cult base govt, they'd have a much harder time causing problems with their neighbors. Our new Iraqi buddies have a shit load of oil too.  I see not only an Iranian war coming, but probably something will happen with Syria too. We should just do it, do it right, and be done with it. Nothing that's really worth doing is ever easy.

They want us dead (their govt and their religious leaders, same thing). All of us. Us Americans too often forget that little fact.

Quoted: 1 gallon of skim milk in store = $3.29 1 gallon of 87 ethanol at pump = $2.59.9 Its those damn Holsteins! Lets go to war with the cows! No silage for you......

So how much milk do you drink a week?  How much gas?

It gets even worse when the phase-out of MTBE and replacing it with ethanol.  What happens is the Reid vapor pressure limits cannot be met, requiring a higher percentage of alkylate (iso-octane, a synthetic product of limited supply) to make up for the lower octane rating.

Since alkylation units are dangerous and expensive to operate, gasoline becomes more expensive.

The price of gas could be dropped to under $2 a gallon if Congress would step in and get rid of the RVP cap along with oxygenate requirements.  They do NOT make a statistical difference in air quality with the modern cars...that being, cars made after 1984.

Now on the diesel prices...running the 15 ppm sulfur in an older diesel engine without three way catalyst aftertreatment has limited value.  Yet the entire diesel supply chain for road diesel is being changed to the 15 ppm grade.  We need at least two grades of road diesel but retailers will be forced with increased inventory and equipment along with enforcment of which diesel vehicle needs what grade.  

We should be building nuclear plants, tide-harnessing generators, and more solar and wind farms.

But we're not.

Sucks to be us in the next couple of years.

The problem is regulations that are ineffective.  Not a single person at the US EPA is willing to do a real experiment, rather they use their old test methods that incorporate 1970's engine and automotive technology.

Quoted: Quoted: Currently $2.59 a gallon here for the cheapest priced gas.  I would expect $2.90-$3.15 a gallon by Memorial Day, depending.  Chances are $3.50 a gallon by the 4th of July.   this is my thinking too. gas futures are as high as they were any time last year, except for katrina spikes, and the summer driving season hasn't even started yet. gas supplies are tight.

They are apparently tight because of shortages in some of the materials needed to make summer blend gas.  I suspect an Executive Order could suspend some of these summer blend requirement, also once the price of gas gets high enough arbitrage from Europe and Asia becomes viable (as happened after the hurricanes last year).

Quoted: www.globalexchange.org/countries/brazil/3776.html a shit country like Brazil figured out how not to become dependant on mideast oil. But we cant?

But at huge cost to their economy.  

GunLvr

Quoted: Quoted: If Iran starts contesting shipping in the Straits of Hormuz I think the oil company's will have there excuse to rip us off even more...hopefully not $5.00 a gallon but it wouldn't  suprise me if those thieves try. I would think the Navy can keep Iran from restricting the Straits...

I suspect so too, but how important are the Straits?  Isn't there a network of pipelines in Saudi Arabia (and Kuwait) which can move oil over to the Red Sea or even to Jordan and the Mediterranean?  

i'm worried about the impending aluminum foil shortage!!!

Rather than worry about what's going to happen in the next five years, I like to think about what the world will be like in my golden years.  I have about 30 years until then, so let's do five minutes of math to see what it will be like.

We can forecast relatively securely, because we know roughly what the depletion numbers are.  We use very advanced technology to extract oil from the ground, it's the best money can buy and the best that America can put out there.  The biggest oil field in the world is Ghawar, and depletion stats on Ghawar are not totally conclusive.  Cantarell, though, that one we can nail down.  Cantarell is the second largest oil field in the world, and it is depleting at a rate of at least 8% per year.  Bergen in Kuwait is depleting by at least 8% per year.  It seems to me that a conservative estimate of world oil production depletion can be calculated at 8%.

If you are an investor, then you know all about the Rule of 72.  Take your percentage growth in an investment, such as an S&P 500 index fund, and divide the percentage return into 72, and that will tell you how long it will take for your money to double.  Conversely, take your depletion rate and divide that percentage into 72 and that will tell you how long it will take for your investment to be cut in half.

8% into 72 gives you nine.  Nine years for oil production to drop by 50%.  

18 years for oil production to drop to 25%.

27 years for oil production to drop to 12.5%

36 years for oil production to drop to 6.75%.

As my golden years set in, and I relax into retirement, I can watch oil production drop from 6.75% of today's production to roughly 4%, and as the first half of my golden years fall away, we can watch oil production decline from 4% of today's production drop to 2% of today's production.  If I hang on until the bitter end, I can see today's 85 million barrels per day drop to 850,000 barrels per day, shared among some nine billion people or so, if the most optimistic estimates hold true.

If I had a child today, that child would enter its most productive earning years as oil production drops 99%.  Under those circumstances, I would be wise to choose the 4 cylinder vs the 12 cylinder.

Your mileage, whatever it may be, will vary.

Maybe God will invent something for us.

I'm just going to see what happens to the price of gas when Spring break ends.

If gas goes up any more there better be a fucken revolt!!!

Quoted: Quoted: The bottleneck is the refining capacity which has been hampered by the seasonal switch to summer blend low Reid vapor pressure type. Congress needs to step in and get the provision in the Clean Air Act removed, making way for ASTM to work with refiners and automobile manufacturers to settle on one, consistent blend.  Why?  Because when the CAA was instituted(1970), no vehicles has vapor control measures.  Now every car since 1996 has had complete vapor control systems that must operate correctly, otherwise a malfunction indicator is turned on...the dreaded check engine light in most cases.  Technology has eclipsed the need for this provision yet Congress is afraid of doing a damn thing because of the leftist environmental lobby. But it NEEDS to be done NOW. Hit the nail on the head there, as I understand it, there are 84 different blends of gas, and that is stupid, we need to settle on one, and stick with it. That would increase refinery cap. by a huge amount, and go a long way in reducing prices. W has tried to get this done,  the enviro libs, have killed it. We could choose the least polluting, and refine only it, and still be way ahead of where we are now.

Sorry man, it will not happen. Too much money involved.

Cost of groceries will go up, the economy will adjust over time.  

I don't care.  It is a free market, gotta' enjoy the good with the bad.

Personally, I can take $5 a gallon, I only live 3 miles from my office and a drive a diesel.

Phht. I have a fuel efficient car already.

Quoted: ....  The biggest oil field in the world is Ghawar, and depletion stats on Ghawar are not totally conclusive.  Cantarell, though, that one we can nail down.  Cantarell is the second largest oil field in the world, and it is depleting at a rate of at least 8% per year.  Bergen in Kuwait is depleting by at least 8% per year.  It seems to me that a conservative estimate of world oil production depletion can be calculated at 8%. ...

You are wrong.  You completely glossed over technology and the newly developed ability to tap into ultra-deep water offshore oil.  You have NEVER addressed this fact.

Nor have you addressed the explosive growth in deep water field development, aided by the higher prices for crude.  Deepwater was all but written off in the late 1990s unless it was a major player.  Now with the current prices, even the smaller independents is able to leverage technology for deep water development.  

We are not running out of oil.  Technology is increasing faster than the easy oil is disappearing.  

5 bucks a gallon. .. ? not the issue.. issue is the ability to get fuel of any kind at all when:

1. we take out iran's nuke sites
2. iran suicide tankers close the straights of hormuz
3. iran salts saudi, kuwaiti, iraq, and their own oil fields with dirty radiocative garbage that they can no longer use to make bombs, putting the majority of the known world's oil reserves out of service for 10,000 years.

think the above is far fetched?

we should make the effort be become energy self-sufficient the granddady of all american projects, a combo of manhattan and the man-on-the-moon.

i have a car built in 91 that gets over 45 mpg. a modern version of this car would get over 70. improve effeciencies by provding tax incentives/penalties for fuel effecency. spend some of the government's wasted dollars on alternative fuels, fuel tech and new nuclear power sites...

I looked into the TDI Jetta a while back when gas hit $3/gallon.  My analysis:

Used TDI Jetta:  $15,000
Fuel:  100,000 miles x 45 mpg = 2222 gallons @$3/gallon = $6666 fuel bill
Cost of ownership minus maintenance= $21,666

Used Honda Civic:  $8,000
Fuel:  100,000 miles x 30 mpg = 3333 gallons @$3/gallon = $9999 fuel bill
Cost of ownership minus maintenence= $17,999

Diesel is only a viable option if you can either buy the car at a comparable price, or fuel is significantly cheaper.  At the time I was looking, the local VW dealer was more than happy to prebook me a new TDI Jetta for $5000 over MSRP.  

Quoted: <snip> We are not running out of oil.  Technology is increasing faster than the easy oil is disappearing.

We ran out of $2.50 a gallon gas, but have plenty of $3 a gallon gas for now.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The bottleneck is the refining capacity which has been hampered by the seasonal switch to summer blend low Reid vapor pressure type. Congress needs to step in and get the provision in the Clean Air Act removed, making way for ASTM to work with refiners and automobile manufacturers to settle on one, consistent blend.  Why?  Because when the CAA was instituted(1970), no vehicles has vapor control measures.  Now every car since 1996 has had complete vapor control systems that must operate correctly, otherwise a malfunction indicator is turned on...the dreaded check engine light in most cases.  Technology has eclipsed the need for this provision yet Congress is afraid of doing a damn thing because of the leftist environmental lobby. But it NEEDS to be done NOW. Hit the nail on the head there, as I understand it, there are 84 different blends of gas, and that is stupid, we need to settle on one, and stick with it. That would increase refinery cap. by a huge amount, and go a long way in reducing prices. W has tried to get this done,  the enviro libs, have killed it. We could choose the least polluting, and refine only it, and still be way ahead of where we are now. Sorry man, it will not happen. Too much money involved.

What money?  Sure, the refiners spent a lot of money on MTBE/TAME equipment but these products were mandated by the CAA amendments and are a LOSS for the refiners.  Ditto with adding ethanol which is at an all-time high.  E85 suffers from the VOC emissions and therefore is not allowed in all areas BECAUSE THE EPA HAS DETERMINED TO INCREASE NON-COMBUSTION EMISSIONS.

The real, root cause bottleneck in supply isn't the cost of crude nor the cost of refining, it is the regulations that the EPA enforces through the CleanAir Act amendments with respect to vapor pressure of gasoline and the recent cut back in MTBE due to its groundwater polluting effects.  Since MTBE is no longer allowed in many areas, the refiners have to use other oxygenates.  But ethanol can only be used during the winter because it raises vapor pressure.

The EPA has painted the refiners into a corner.  Elimination of the STUPID vapor pressure cap would solve most of the problems.  And elimination of the oxygenate requirements would solve the rest.

Damn, some people here just cannot think.  Or read.

Someone mentioned that when fuel production gets messed with 87 octane will be what is produced.

I think I agree with the person who said jp-8 will be produced since I believe that is basically a type of diesel.

Because everything gets moved with diesel to the stores I think diesel will be around.

I am hedging my bet by setting up some fuel storage now, that is another reason diesel is nice because it does not have 10 million versions due to emissions and diesel stores pretty well if treated.

My truck sucks for commuting me to a job all by myself everyday.  My truck rocks if I fill the other 5 seats in it and have to become a sort of bus to the store.  A passenger van would be better and an old school bus would be even better yet, but I like my pickup and I suspect I can keep fuel for it in the tank because people are going to go shopping less and buy more at a time.