Gas Prices?

[Da0ne]

$40 @ $3.77/gal

10.61 gallons

 

10.61 gallons @ $4.29/gal

$45.51

im comparing mine to the 15 gallon diesel tank you mentioned it comes out to $65

[kuzzi]

im comparing mine to the 15 gallon diesel tank you mentioned it comes out to $65

Ah, I follow now. :)

[rico567]

Four bucks here for ULR yesterday, saw diesel at ten cents LESS. People who want to make invidious comparisons with diesels always quote the extreme differences in price.....which are usually not that extreme.

 

I know I'm probably committing some kind of faux pas in quoting myself, but I couldn't resist. So far, this thread is doing a bonzer job of bearing out my point. $3.21 would be an extremely low price for ULR compared to anything I've seen here in the last three years, and $3.79 is not a lot for diesel. Cherry-picking numbers does not a trend prove.

[aaronj1159]

 

I know I'm probably committing some kind of faux pas in quoting myself, but I couldn't resist. So far, this thread is doing a bonzer job of bearing out my point. $3.21 would be an extremely low price for ULR compared to anything I've seen here in the last three years, and $3.79 is not a lot for diesel. Cherry-picking numbers does not a trend prove.

Yes but I'm one of the ones that said I didn't want to buy a diesel because of the price difference in the fuels. Fuel prices elsewhere did not affect my decision on that, only the ones in Blacksburg, Va. That is why I use that as a reason for not buying a diesel vehicle.

[acdii]

It isnt just the added cost of the Diesel, you also have the additives that you need. Especially in winter. Fuel treatment is a must with the ULSD, and winter the added protection from gelling. There is also the urea tank that has to be filled occasionally. I dont know if these small diesels use it, but 15w40 Rotella, which is made specifically for Diesels, is not cheap.

 

I used to have a Diesel F350, before diesel prices soared it was cheaper to drive than an Explorer was, then diesel got outrageous.

[dalesky]

Here, there is always a big difference in Diesel, and most places i travel to are the same (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, NC). If regular gas goes down a bit the difference in diesel can actually go up, It usually stays close to 60 or even 80 cents a gallon higher. Right now it is closer to 50 cents. Volkswagon makes a great diesel. In Europe I have seen everything from Honda mini vans to Jeeps that are diesel. What are we missing here?

[hybridbear]

With how our gas prices have skyrocketed here now diesel is temporarily cheaper. Diesel has stayed around $3.89/gal while gas prices peaked at $4.30/gal but now have come down to about $3.99.

 

The evaluation of a diesel vs a hybrid has to do with your driving. If you do a lot of highway miles then a diesel is likely a better bet. While we have found that the FFH will get 40 MPG or less at fast freeway speeds, a diesel might still manage 50 MPGs at that speed. On the other hand the FFH will get 50 MPG in the city while a diesel might only get 25-30 MPG in the city. That is the difference. Diesel cars in the US are more expensive than European diesels because emissions standards here are more strict in certain areas that impede the sale of diesels. In Europe their emissions standards are more focused on CO2 which can favor diesels. In the US there has been a big crackdown on NOx and Sulfur emissions which diesels create more of per gallon of fuel burned than a gasoline engine.

 

In Europe diesel fuel is also cheaper than gasoline which favors diesels, That's what we're missing here

[neod192]

Michigan is doing really bad now. They said MI prices are the highest in the continental US - the only place with higher prices is Hawaii ..

 

http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/06/analyst_michigan_gas_prices_co.html

 

It also could just be Michigan's turn, said Flynn, explaining that Minneapolis had a price spike a couple of weeks ago, and prior to that it hit Chicago.

Edited June 4, 2013 by neod192

[kuzzi]

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx?z=0&lat=37.000000&long=-96.000000&ft=A&tl=48

[DeeCee]

Filled up today at $3.05.9 (Tank average was 50.3 mpg)

Edited June 5, 2013 by DeeCee

[tr7driver]

I'm starting to view the pattern of refinery problems (change overs/seasonal blends/product mix issues) is an interesting opportunity for the refiners to boost income by artificially limiting supply. The outages/problems cause local/regional spikes in prices. The geographic areas impacted by the problems are large enough to generate huge jumps in income from fuel sales, while small enough to keep the issue off the national radar.

 

In my opinion, the refiners are demonstrating the inability to manage their own product output in a way to insure a reliable supply of appropriate product in dependable volumes. Or maybe there is some collusion to push prices higher by manipulation of supply. Incompetence or conspiracy? Take your pick, neither is very attractive.

 

If you view a reliable fuel supply at stable price levels as an issue of national economic security, then the next logical step is increased regulation of the refinery industry. The frequent refinery problems at widespread locations may hide this issue for a while, but eventually the refiners will be called to the woodshed. Can government regulators be any better at managing the fuel supply? The current EPA seasonal and regional blend requirements already make the refinery business very complicated. Just fuel for thought.

[acdii]

$4.19 this morning! It was down to $3.89 last week.

[corncobs]

And I need gas soon damn luckily Sam's Club is usually a few cents cheaper.

[kuzzi]

Due to environmental regulations, no new refineries have been built in that last 35 years. There have been major advancements in refining techniques that would allow easier extraction of the fuels, but the EPA won't allow it unless even more gobs of money are spent to overcome environmental regulation. Even when oil was $150/bbl in 2007, there wasn't enough incentive to warrant building new refineries.

 

So while we wait, current refineries are getting older and unsafe or are being retrofitted to meet the demand that is driving prices up. California has had some refinery incidents lately and BP finally got rid of its plagued Texas City refinery. When incidents happen, massive investigations take place that just cost money for the aging refineries. I have heard talk of a new refinery in North Dakota, but I believe it is only going to be used for lowering the currently high fuel prices there and reduce their imports. Should the Keystone Pipeline get finished, the refineries would still be the old machinery in use 40 years beforehand. These refineries are necessary but we cannot make substantial upgrade to the existing infrastructure or build new ones.

 

Say you have a 35 year old car. It has issues all the time and you have to keep fixing it. You want to get a new car, but they are just too expensive, so you start saving up money for one. You are told that you cannot get a new cheap car due to regulations against you, you must get the Lexus LF-A. While you save money, your current car keeps breaking down more and more so you have to use your new car savings to fix it. Your current car is NECESSARY for you and you cannot just get an updated model, but you have to go beyond what is needed to meet regulations. In the end, it would take more time and effort than is justified to get the new car so you can choose to completely restore your current car. You aren't allowed to make any substantial upgrades, so you just get parts that match the specs of the equipment when it was new 35 years ago, maybe add AC or a slightly better engine. The car still performs as it did 35 years ago or a little better and breaks less often, but is still lacking a substantial amount of innovation and efficiency.

 

20 years ago, oil companies budgeted what it would take to be profitable, and they used $80/bbl as the standard for budgeting their operations for the next couple of decades. Now, they are planning again for the future with more expensive projects with ultra-deepwater, high temperature, and high pressure formation and are finding it hard to justify the cost of producing these fields at $95/bbl.

 

Make efficient refineries and we can yield more bang for our buck, literally.

Edited June 5, 2013 by kuzzi

[acdii]

That is the key here. The EPA has made it so tough with over regulating Environment controls, that it is impossible to build any new ones. So when the last few remaining ones shut down once and for all, we become solely dependent on import fuel, imagine what the cost will be then! Actually you dont have to imagine, just look at fuel prices over seas where its all imported.

 

BAN the EPA!

[kuzzi]

As an addendum, say you did work from your 35 year old car. You would have to start charging customers more to keep up repairs. They would not be happy to see that you're charging more but providing the same service with an aging vehicle. But it's not your fault, it's the regulation against you. No one realizes that because all they see is you, you are the face of the service, not the regulators.

[acdii]

It's the Governments Fault, Fire them all! All of them!

[tr7driver]

With the new CAFE regulations and efficient hybrids, gasoline demand is expected to continue to fall dramatically. Even without the EPA regs and the NIMBY attitude of US consumers, building additional capacity is risky

 

I own a 34 year old car that only gets 28 MPG. Thank heavens the Government ignores it. I'm sure Illinois will come up with a "obsolete vehicle" or "carbureted vehicle" tax soon.

[kuzzi]

I agree, additional capacity is very risky.

 

CAFE sets efficiency standards for a given capacity. Keep capacity constant, but bring up the efficiency of the refineries and scrap the old ones when demand drops.

 

I should have ended my rant above with:

 

Same bang for less buck!

[mokee]

Prices in my hometown today range from $4.39.9 - $4.17.9 for regular per Gas Buddy.

 

I've concluded that retail pricing of gasoline is based on perception of what major oil companies think customers expect to pay given "conditions" of the local market. Our news media helps them by publicizing negative reports on price from blend changes effecting refinery capacity, pipeline problems, refinery fires, oil sheiks farting....blah, blah, blah. Price goes up because of summer blend and price goes up because of winter blend and it's oh so slow to recede..

 

Last I heard, most blending was done at the bulk terminals not refineries, and by the way what ever happened to tank farms evening out supply problems and those redundant pipelines. The majors are closing refineries or limiting capacity....no one wants a refinery in their backyard. Was the refinery not there when they moved in?

 

Price fixing is a no-no, then why is it that intersections with a gas station on every corner you see the same price wherever you look. While you're looking check out the satellite dishes on the roof of each station. Talk about real time price reporting and changing, it takes them longer to change the signs....oops, I forgot about those electronic signs. I can't end this rant without talking about diesel. Why is it in my travels diesel in general is less expensive in western states. Oh, I must be wrong or forgot about the EPA.

 

edit: I forgot to ask why the majors need to have their own commodity trading floors.

Edited June 5, 2013 by mokee

[kuzzi]

Studying these maps helps me to understand under most circumstances why prices are what they are.

 

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

 

http://www.refinerymaps.com/

 

http://www.eia.gov/state/

 

The resource map doesn't even take into account the crude deposits in the Gulf.

 

Factor in the local cost of living (California vs Texas vs NY for example) and that can explain some more discrepancies. Then think about the surrounding area, population density, and their demand for each different type of fuel. Missing from these maps is also refinery capacity. Some low capacity refineries could be supporting large populations. Large capacity refineries along the Gulf can export large quantities across the Gulf and Atlantic states while still maintaining adequate supply within its own state.

 

Showing everything together, Michigan is in a pickle. Plenty of resources, but very little drilling, and little refining. What little refining it does do may be exported to support the Northeast area (up to Maine). Then in Illinois, plenty of drilling in the south, but there's also a pipeline leading to Texas. The path of least resistance is down the pipeline. Everything else has to be trucked to the Chicago area refineries, which may have to be used to supply Michigan and the surrounding areas.

 

It's fun to imagine these execs with a map of the Midwest and throwing darts at it labeled with price increase percentages, but unfortunately all my engineering and business schooling plus recent experiences has me looking at the patterns and it just makes sense that it's nothing so cynical.

[mokee]

Yes, I'm cynical. The top five US refining companies enjoy better than 55% of market share. It leaves loads of room for possible inventory manipulation to control pricing. The major companies have made a meal of buying out independent refineries and closing them.

[acdii]

Peruse this, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765631138/US-has-huge-oils-reserves-so-lets-expand-to-new-export-markets.html

[kuzzi]

Filled up yesterday at $3.299/gal for 87 octane. Diesel is now less than Premium here.

 

After going through the manual again, I see the compression ratio for the engine is 12.3:1, and the manual states that occasional knocking is possible. Any knock is unacceptable to me as the timing has to change to adapt which robs power. My bike is 12:1 and requires Premium since it cannot change timing on the fly. I've had to use 87 octane before and that caused knocking, never again. After I feel the car engine is broken-in I will use 87 octane for a couple of tanks, then 89, then premium. The higher the octane, the more ethanol content (up to 10% in TX). Ethanol contains ~25% less energy than gasoline and burns at a different rate (it requires a higher ignition temperature to burn fully which is why it is used as an octane booster so added compression reduces chance of auto-ignition). So what's happening inside the chamber is the gasoline in the blend is ignited first due to the lower ignition temperature. This gasoline burns and heats up the ethanol until its ignition temperature is reached. The optimal point when complete combustion is 20 degrees ATDC. The ethanol may not all be burned by that point. Advancing ignition could help the combustion complete by that point, at the risk of increasing knock. The addition of ethanol increases the combustion time of the fuel in the cylinder and yields less power. The manual says to avoid anything above 10% blend (other spots says 15% is fine).

 

Hopefully there's a middle ground here between knocking and ethanol content. Unfortunately this will probably be null for those in regions that have 10% required across all octanes. This brings up another interesting point, in the regions where an exact given ethanol content is required, who's to say that the 87 octane fuel doesn't really have a rating of 92 and the 91 octane has an actual rating of 92 as well but with different detergents? It's just a minimum octane rating. Like a machine shop meeting a given surface finish requirement, they will more times than not give you a smoother finish than specified just so there's some wiggle room.

 

Another unfortunate circumstance, with the great fuel economy as is, I don't have to fill up the tank as much, so results are long away, haha.

 

Edit: Added combustion cycle process.

Edited June 6, 2013 by kuzzi

[mokee]

Current home town prices top out at $4.399. Here we enjoy the ethanol penalty, higher Illinois motor fuel taxes, EPA cost penalties as well as having to pay more to ship, purchase and refine Canadian heavy. I question if the above justifies up to a $1.30 per gallon price increase over what the folks pay in Alabama or South Carolina?

 

Peruse this, http://www.deseretne...rt-markets.html

 

Nice article acdii. Last I heard it's illegal to export crude from the US. Only refined product is allowed. Maybe that's why so many pipelines lead to {or will lead to) the 25 refineries in Texas.