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anomalocaris 18-Feb-13, 07:13	Price of Gallon of Gas Up 96% Under Obama February 12, 2013 By Matt Cover (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) (CNSNews.com) – The average price of a gallon of gas has increased 96 percent since President Barack Obama first took office in 2009, according to figures from the Energy Information Agency (EIA). According to EIA data, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the United States was $1.838 on Jan. 19, 2009--the day before Obama took office. As of Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, the per-gallon price had risen to an average of $3.611--an increase of 96 percent. The $3.677 is not the highest gas prices have been under President Obama. That record was reached the week of May 9, 2011 when they averaged $3.965 per gallon. Gas prices took a sharp dive during the recession but have climbed back to near their pre-recession peak under Obama, despite the President’s push for greater fuel-efficient cars and trucks and pursuit of expanded clean energy. (The recession officially occurred from December 2007 to June 2009.) Gas prices have never been this high in early February in American history, according to EIA, even in 2008 when gas prices reached all-time highs. I remember being told by the libs how much gas would go down under Obama. Bush was an oil guy you know.
softaire 18-Feb-13, 07:40	Gas in San Diego yesterday was $4.37. That seems high to me. But I'm wondering what gas costs elsewhere around the world? I think it generally is higher, but is it higher in terms of cost relative to the rest of the cost of living? Or, are other things comparable and gas is higher? It seems that it has always been this way too. I remember that back in the 80's, 90's, when I was flight instructing, we got a large number of students from Europe because the cost for fuel there was so high. I hired a number of pilots from Scandinavia and Europe when I owned the Part 135 airline.
dmaestro 18-Feb-13, 09:48	Oil prices are set by speculators and oil company manipulation. Oil prices were high just before the recession and they will skyrocket very soon. How soon conservatives forget they promised cheap oil if they took out saddam. Actually he kept prices lower by black market sales.
anomalocaris 18-Feb-13, 10:52	Soooo Its good to know that politics has NOTHING to do with "independent" speculators. That's the biggest mess of inside trading if I have ever seen it.
ace-of-aces 18-Feb-13, 13:12	Why gas prices are high ? money.cnn.com 32 days of higher gas prices comes at tough time By Emily Jane Fox @CNNMoney February 18, 2013: 7:54 AM ET 4 Email Print Gas prices have been rising due to higher oil prices, production cuts and refinery issues. Click chart for state-by-state data. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) Gas prices have risen for 32 days straight, according to AAA. That means that the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has increased more than 13% over that period to $3.73. It's hitting wallets right in the middle of winter, when people are already looking at large home heating bills. And it comes just after many Americans have been hit with smaller paychecks, and are worried about looming budget cuts that could deliver an even deeper blow. What's behind the higher prices at the pump? It's a confluence of factors, from rising crude oil prices, to production cuts and refinery closings. "Right now, things are tight worldwide," said Ray Carbone, president of New York commodities trading firm Paramount Options. "Refineries going down, unanticipated maintenance, and higher demand ... going into driving season." Two-thirds of the cost of one gallon of gas comes from the price of crude, which has jumped 10% in the last two months, according to the Energy Information Administration. As the U.S. housing market experiences a resurgence, the jobs picture brightens and consumer spending expands, anticipation of higher oil demand is driving up prices. At the same time, fears have ebbed that there would be a protracted slowdown in China's economy, which would have dampened global demand for oil. OPEC, the powerful cartel of petroleum exporting countries, is also believed to have cut production by about 1 million barrels a day in the last few months, partly in response to rising oil production elsewhere, notably the United States. Adding to that, several refineries are either preparing to, or have already, shut down for maintenance before their annual switch to summer gasoline, which is formulated differently. For the average American, all this couldn't be happening at a worse time. Most of the country's 160 million workers are taking home less pay each week since the payroll tax cuts expired last month. The government in 2011 had temporarily lowered the payroll tax rate for the first $113,700 of annual earnings in an effort to keep more cash in the pockets of Americans and provide a boost to the economy. Now, workers earning the national average salary of $41,000 are receiving about $60 less on every monthly paycheck. Related: CNNMoney map: Check gas prices in your state Many Americans are also worried that the federal aid programs they rely on are on the chopping block. Next month, lawmakers will face off against the so-called "sequester," which will slash $85 billion from federal agencies over seven months. By some estimates, up to 1 million jobs will be lost even as millions of federal workers will be furloughed and a bevy of programs and services across the government will be curtailed. In such a scenario of widespread furloughs and job cuts, gas price will likely have a deeper impact if they continue to rise. First Published: February 17, 2013: 5:26 PM ET Share
changeling 18-Feb-13, 13:36	Petrol (Gas) price currently in Cairns (Tropical North Queensland) A$1.55 per litre (around A$6.00 per gallon) A$ buys 1.03 US $ (roughly).
softaire 18-Feb-13, 13:42	change That's not as high, comparatively speaking, as I had thought. Can you judge if it is higher than our cost in proportion to the rest of your cost of living, or is it all higher there? In other words, is it more or about the same as ours when compared to the cost of everything else?
ace-of-aces 18-Feb-13, 13:47	Pros and cons of higher gas prices ! If you produce oil or gas, or if you have stocks in oil you will be very happy because you will get more money from selling of it at higher prices. America is no exception because recent technological advances in oil and gas extraction by fracking can produce not only sufficient for US but can sell abroad and make profit in the near future. It is estimated that US can produce and has oil reserves similar to that of the largest oild producing country Saudi Arabia. Previouly 50 percent of the oil was imported and now it is only 20 percent imported. When President Obama leaves office in 4 yrs US will be oil sufficent and may be exporting. We now have plenty of natural gas which now liquefied and is now exporting to overseas. If America is now producing oil why we have higher gas prices ? Oil is an international commodity and in the age of globilzation US has no way of controlling the oil prices even in the boundaries o her own country but there are some means of stabilization of oil at lower prices according the law of supply and demand. Oil by fracking is now producing mainly on private lands. We should encourage more drilling onshore and offshore. We should also encourage building more oil pipe lines such as Keystone to transport oil from Canada or domestic oil. We should encourage alternative energy sources. Our industry needs and transportation is still dependent on oil. Our economy may not recover if oil prices are still high. Unemployment will persist with poor economy. It is mandatory that it should be the combined efforts of all American people to get cheap and enough oil supply.
changeling 18-Feb-13, 13:56	The US pays far less for oil than Australia (two separate markets, WTC & TAPIS): This is quite interesting and bears out someone else's post on the 'markets' (guess who?) www.news.com.au
dmaestro 18-Feb-13, 14:41	Conservatives will never admit it but in fact they did promise the world would be afloat in a sea of oil after the Iraq invasion. In fact it was a stupid strategic blunder that created the current markets. OPEC kept prices fairly stable in the 1990s. Gasoline was selling for around a dollar a gallon when Bush 43 took office and OPEC was a moderating force on oil prices. By the time he left office the summer before has seen record $4/gallon gasoline prices and only the near depression brought them back down. This article describes how stupid the conservatives were when it came to oil prices. ======================================= Oil Prices and Regime Resilience in the Gulf by Fareed Mohamedi published in MER232 The steady summertime creep of oil prices past $40 per barrel and over an unprecedented $45 surprised most oil analysts, including this one, who were expecting the price to drop after the US-led invasion of Iraq. But no one is likely to have been as stunned as the Bush administration policymakers, like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who glibly promised post-invasion prosperity for the country “floating on a sea of oil.” Instead, over a year after the end of “major combat,” insurgents regularly attack pipelines, ports and foreign ships, preventing Iraq from exporting all the oil it can produce. At home, the White House faces Democratic and public pressure to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to lower gas prices -- a move for which candidate George W. Bush castigated the Clinton administration in 2000. Most galling of all to the neo-conservatives must be that higher oil prices, among other factors, have helped political elites in Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Gulf petro-princedoms, once on the regime change wish list, to tighten their grip on power. Putin’s Pledge Oil prices broke through the preferred OPEC price range of $22-28 per barrel in the fall of 2002, as it became clear that the US would invade Iraq. War-related anxiety and supply interruptions due to strikes in Venezuela presented the Saudis with an opportunity to reestablish their tarnished reputation in Washington as the “swing producer” -- the oil supplier of last resort. Since September 11, 2001, a rising chorus emanating from Washington think tanks had been calling for “replacement” of “unstable” Saudi Arabia with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin exploited the panic and assured Bush that Russia would be the new US strategic partner. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, majority owner of Yukos, Russia’s largest recently privatized oil company, traveled to Washington, where he was feted by many of the fretting think tanks. In one particularly amusing moment, Khodorkovsky presented a map of the US and Russia centered on the Bering Strait. Russia was next door, he implied, so it could provide the oil that an “unstable” Saudi Arabia could not. The enthusiasm for Russian oil inflated the stock price of Russian oil companies traded in the US faster than the increase in oil prices during the 1999 and 2002 period. Khodorkovsky and the “oil-igarchs” made more money from Wall Street than from oil. But in December 2002 and January 2003, when the Venezuelan strike occurred, there were no extra Russian supplies to offset the decline in Venezuelan production. Russia’s privatized oil industry, driven as it is by profit, cannot sit idle and save its production capacity for the day when extra oil is needed. Only one country, for purely strategic reasons, has resolved to do that: Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, a fundamental change occurred in Saudi Arabia’s relations with Russia. The Bush administration’s disregard for the UN Security Council in its march to war deeply alienated not only European allies but also Russia and China. As a result, in early 2003 the Kremlin seemed to step back from pledges of a rapid rise in oil production made to Bush in Crawford, Texas after September 11. Domestic economic reasons also prompted Putin to shift his stance. Russia’s “economic recovery” had largely come about because of higher oil prices, higher export revenues and better cooperation from the oligarchs in paying their taxes. Since very little fundamental restructuring of the economy had been achieved, a collapse in the oil price would return Russia to the economic chaos of the late 1990s. Moreover, Putin’s offer of help on the oil price went largely unrequited by US economic assistance. By 2003, the safer bet for Russia was higher oil prices. Saudi pleas to the Bush administration not to invade Iraq also went unheeded. With Russia in the mood to cooperate, the Saudis sent Crown Prince Abdallah to Moscow in August 2003 to forge an agreement on a host of issues including cooperation on the oil front. It is not clear what the specifics of the agreement were, but there have been apparent changes in Russia’s oil policy. Russia stopped positioning itself in the oil markets as a competitor to OPEC. The government refused to cede control over the country’s extensive pipeline system -- the key instrument for managing oil exports. Putin also doubled taxes on the local oil companies, dampening investment and prospects for sharp increases in future supplies of oil. Finally, he imprisoned Khodorkovsky, “nationalized” his shares in Yukos and sent a clear signal to investors that oil production and prices would be used to serve the ends of the state. The Iraq Factor Some observers have maintained that the US invaded Iraq for its oil. After the invasion, they may have been surprised by the utter incompetence of the US-British occupation authority and companies such as Halliburton in securing the hydrocarbon riches. Unsecured oil sector facilities led to rampant looting and theft of crude oil and products, while a neglect of the power sector shut down refineries and left pumping stations idle. Iraqi output since May 2003 has fluctuated between 1.5 and 2 million barrels per day, well below pre-invasion levels. Political disarray has delayed the onset of “new” oil from Iraq. Foreign oil companies had welcomed the prospect of the opening of the Iraqi oil sector, something they had hoped would happen with smart sanctions and along the lines of what Saddam Hussein’s government had proposed as far back as 1990. While they did not in general support the war because of the inherent risks, oil companies did begin to study the assets and the means of securing contracts to develop the country’s vast resources. However, they recognized that the competition for Iraq’s oil sector was going to be intense and that the terms were going to be fairly lean. The extent of the unrest within the country caught them by surprise, as did the pushback of plans to establish a legitimate government with whom they could sign contracts to 2006. Most international companies, while maintaining a keen interest in the Iraqi oil sector, have adopted a wait-and-see posture. The prospect of the return of Iraqi oil in sizable quantities had threatened to upset the cooperation between OPEC members which had kept prices well above $20 a barrel despite a world recession in the wake of September 11. Some member states felt that Saudi Arabia had gotten the lion’s share of the market share that Iraq had ceded in the 1990s. Out of fairness, these states argued, they should be able to produce and sell more oil once Iraq returned. Dissension within OPEC ranks could have led to a price war. The persistent and apparently insoluble problems of the Iraqi oil sector, at least in the short run, combined with the long delays in new investment completely erased the fears that OPEC would have to deal with higher flows from Iraq. In fact, the war removed Iraqi flows right after Venezuelan production went offline and put another dent in world crude oil stocks. As a result, OPEC was producing full tilt with Saudi Arabian output reaching over 10 million barrels per day for a short period. The last time the Saudis produced at that level was in 1979 during the Iranian oil workers’ strike that contributed to the downfall of the Shah. OPEC cooperation is intact. Waiting for More International oil companies have invested heavily in high technology to extract the remaining petroleum in non-OPEC countries and seek out fresh discoveries. But in general, even as new upstream oil developments in Brazil, West Africa, the Caspian and Russia come online, they are barely offsetting the declines in production in an increasingly mature non-OPEC oil patch. The international oil companies and national oil companies that operate in non-OPEC areas are finding it harder to raise output and are watching their costs rise as a consequence of maintaining current output. Moreover, for the international oil companies, the number of places to invest outside of OPEC countries is shrinking. In general, higher oil prices have considerably tightened terms in most countries and, in some cases, have dissuaded governments from making their sectors available for investment because at these prices their own national oil companies have adequate financial resources to get the job done. As a result, more international oil companies are chasing after a diminishing set of assets. Most OPEC governments, especially those in the Gulf, know this and are essentially waiting for world oil demand to accrue to them. After the war, world economic growth began to recover in ways that were kind to the oil and finance ministers of the Gulf -- home to roughly two thirds of the world’s proven petroleum reserves. The 2003 recovery had two poles of growth: the US economy, which was boosted by a massive fiscal and monetary stimulus, and China. Between 2002 and 2003, Chinese oil consumption grew by nearly 40 percent. Since its domestic production remained stable, Beijing had to order a massive increase in imports, which came largely from the Gulf. Cash infusions like this, coupled with the trends toward decline in production elsewhere in the world, are reminders of the continuing geostrategic importance of Gulf reserves. The John Kerry campaign platform’s call for less dependence on “Middle Eastern” oil rings hollow in light of these developments. The US and the world will continue to become more dependent on supplies from the Gulf as long as oil consumption grows. Given structural changes taking place in China and India and consumer hostility (exploited by politicians) to suppressed hydrocarbon demand in the US, consumption is more than likely to keep growing. Closing the Opening Low oil prices in the 1990s looked like the harbinger of political liberalization in the Gulf countries. The need to develop gas resources prompted some observers to speculate that economic reforms, including a greater role for private investment, foreign and local, would follow. Political and economic reforms would be self-enforcing. A political opening would bring political stability and confidence, encourage investment and set the country on a new sustainable growth path. Several governments in the region signaled just these intentions. Crown Prince Abdallah signaled a “gas opening” in 1998 which would be the cutting edge of a much wider opening in the infrastructure and industrial sectors of the economy, followed ultimately by the Kingdom’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates all received membership faster by tearing down barriers to entry for foreign businesses. Even Iran passed a new investment law, a new banking law and freed trade in a large number of goods and services. But now the regimes have far less incentive to take these new regulations seriously. High oil prices have stabilized budgets and led to accumulation of foreign assets. The confidence of the skittish private sector in the Gulf economies is back. Gulf businessmen have also grown concerned that their investments in the West could be frozen or nationalized as part of the “war on terrorism.” These businesses have repatriated sizable funds to invest in local real estate and stock markets. So without much effort in the way of reform, Gulf governments have solved the chronic financial problems of the 1990s and even restored some buoyancy to their economies. Job creation has been lagging, but by closing parts of the economy to foreign workers and through stronger growth, the regimes have stanched growth in unemployment. In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, anti-American sentiment has grown in the region, leading to an increase in violence. Ominously for world oil supplies, terrorists have pointedly targeted oil sector facilities in Saudi Arabia. Unsuccessful in hitting these targets, the terrorists began going after foreigners, some of whom work for the oil industry. These attacks have added another risk premium to prices, further boosting the foreign earnings of Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing governments. Higher oil prices exacerbated by direct and indirect US attempts to change the political landscape in the Middle East have fortified these regimes. They have been further bolstered by an adroit use of political “reforms” -- elections to national and local parliaments, for example -- which pretend to give a greater voice to the population. Governments have also positioned themselves “on the side of the people” on issues like Palestine and the invasion of Iraq. All in all, the invasion of Iraq and the neo-conservative dreams of regime change leave the current Gulf state system -- rentierism and authoritarianism -- more resilient and robust then at any time in the last 20 years.
musket33r 18-Feb-13, 17:11	Softy If you adjust the price for PPP, it works out to be roughly the same. It's common in Australia to complain about paying 75% more than the US for everything while ignoring the fact we make an average 75% more than our foreign counterparts. Filled up today in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, paid $1.34 per litre. The price in the middle of the city was closer to $1.60 per litre. I'd imagine it fluctuates greatly in the US too.
tat3225 20-Feb-13, 14:09	Maestros article "Russia's privatized oil industry" Lawl Fail

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