Record gasoline prices expected by this weekend

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Surging gasoline prices will likely push the cost of filling up in San Francisco to a record this weekend, topping the previous high of $3.36 per gallon perhaps as early as Friday.

Some stations in the city have already passed that old record, set last May. Although the city's average price for gallon of regular reached $3.34 Thursday, individual stations were charging as much as $3.83.

... In addition, the nation's gasoline refineries continued to be plagued by mechanical problems, cutting their production of fuel. The refineries that are up and running are making far fatter profit margins than they typically do. By one rough calculation, refinery margins on the West Coast have more than doubled since last fall.


Read more: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/29/BUGVOOUCF77.DTL

[phantom power]

1. Heh. And hurricane season hasn't even started yet

[MikeNearMcChord]

2. Mechanical problems my a@@!

I bet it won't cut into the record profits. On the bright side, we can all yell THANKS SHRUB! He is putting the GOP into a deeper hole!

[prolesunited]

5. They purposely pull lines off

just so they can inflate prices. And what a shock, it's happening again when people will be driving more.

I REALLY, REALLY think the Dems need to bring back the windfall profit tax -- and then channel it into renewable energy and public transportation.

[arcane1]

7. much like the cause of those "rolling blackouts" we had years ago..

before the Enron crew got busted

[prolesunited]

18. Wow, haven't seen you in ages.

Hope all is well. :hi:

[NightWatcher]

3. drive offs and gas theft have already gone viral around here

Earlier in the week somebody pumped out a hundred gallons from an undergound tank at a gas station. This will only increase as we go towards another war in the middle east.

[2Design]

4. bush mission accomplished - the rest of the excuses are bs n/t

[liberal N proud]

6. People who travel for the Easter Holiday week

There are large number of grade & high schools that have spring break around Easter. This lets them take Easter off without the religious discussion.

There are large numbers that travel to Florida from the North East during this time. I-95 becomes a parking lot on the weekends either side of Easter. This weekend going south, the weekend after Easter will be going north. They all head to Disney World

We have gone to Florida this time of year for the last 3 and will be going this year as it is one of the few times my younger daughter can get out of school and our older daughter lives in Florida.
The prices have gone up the week before every year, then they will level off a little until just before labor day.

And the public is too stupid to see this shit and still believes the talking heads and their bull shit about re-formulation. We never dealt with that until about 5 years ago, amazing

[Kool Kitty]

10. That's just what I thought, too.

Here comes Easter, and then Memorial Day and the whole long summer "driving" season. Gas prices kinda remind me of the "frog in the pot" story. If you throw the frog in a pot of boiling water, it'll jump right out. If you put the frog in a pot of water and then slowly turn up the heat, it will just stay there and boil to death. The gas price inches up and up and most people just absorb it and complain a bit, but just keep driving.

[tridim]

8. There goes my summer vacation

I can't afford to drive to my parents house 500 miles away any more. Thank you Bush and Bush oil buddies!

[catzies]

9. Last minute gouging to make those Q1 profit projections

I've been saying for the pst month that the prices will go down as soon as they declare quarterly earnings.

[ronnie624]

11. I've seen this refrain, repeatedly:

In addition, the nation's gasoline refineries continued to be plagued by mechanical problems, cutting their production of fuel.

Here it is in the San Antonio Business Journal:

Tesoro Corp.'s Golden Eagle refinery in Martinez, Calif., continues to be plagued by mechanical failures in the facility's fluid catalytic cracker.

<http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2007/03/05/daily21.html?surround=lfn>

And again in The Boston Globe:

Though crude prices have been fairly stable in recent months, gasoline prices have been surging amid low inventories and refinery outages"

<http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/03/22/crude_rises_as_gas_supply_prices_fall/>

This article cites pipeline "problems":

In the past several months, two pipelines that carry gas to cities such as Chicago and Detroit have suffered problems for which they had to be shut down. Oil companies cited a leaky pipe in March as the reason for supply problems and price increases in the upper Midwest, although the pipeline company disputes the claim.

<http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/06/20/gas.prices.02/>

I've seen similar unsubstantiated claims in the Dallas Morning News and the
local rag as well.

I find it interesting, that none of these articles, offer any details about these "outages" and "problems".

[Trajan]

12. "n addition, the nation's gasoline refineries continued to be plagued by mechanical problems ...."

You know ? : Considering all the jawboning and complaining about not being able to build new refineries: they seem to do a piss poor job of keeping the ones they DO have up and running ....

WTF is stopping them from keeping high maintenance 'values' ? ..... What ? they cant afford it ? ...

What a bunch of fucking malarkey ..... fucking GOUGERS ...

[okoboji]

13. this will continue

so long as the public is silent and says nothing

[Javaman]

14. Boil that frog! Hey! Boil that frog! Hey! Boil that frog! Hey! Boil that frog! Hey! nt

[Javaman]

15. What makes the rise in gas prices so criminal is...

it's not that the price is going up, but it's the fact that unlike europe where the additional fee for the gas goes to public transportation, all this is is pure profit for the oil bastards.

Milk is going up 9%.

food it going up.

the stupid ethanol program is raising the price of beef and anything that contains corn syrup (which basically is everything now)

the slow burn. boil the frog. death by a thousand cuts.

whatever you want to call it, it's a slow death.

Water will be next.

[Doctor_J]

16. In SE MI we're still $.50 away from the all time high

It's about $2.55 right now.

[gratuitous]

17. Two Texas oilmen in the White House, and record pump prices

What are the odds of that happening?

As Christopher Titus says, we must be fucking retarded.