Something to think about! Gas Prices.
 

I am sure all of you have gotten this as many times as I have, but it doesn't hurt to pass it one just as a reminder...............J

NO GAS...On May 15th 2007

Don't pump gas on may 15th

...in April 1997, there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.

On May 15th 2007, all internet users ( or anyone) are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places.

There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up.

If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take
$2,292,000,000.00 (that's almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companys pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and lets try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day.

If y ou agree (which I cant see why you wouldnt) resend this to all your contact list. With it saying, ''Don't pump gas on May 15th

Simple economics tells you that this doesn't work, as that $3 Billion dollars just gets spent the day before or after.

and I need gas to drop at least $1 and some change... not just 30c...

And you hurt the small-business owners (the people who run the local gas station) more than the head honchos at the oil companies.

I don't think the email worked. When I forwarded it to my friends, I got a Gap Gift Card and cash from Bill Gates.

I love how 3,000,000,000$$ is supposed to be some huge number in this case. Major Oil and Gas companies piss three billion dollars.

Don't do it then!

You are under no obligation what so ever!:eek: :)

You don't get it, it won't lower prices and if you were going to have to fill up that day anyway, you'll just fill up the day before or after.

Don't drive for a day. A week. A month. That will save you money and if enough people did it, would actually make a dent in the demand, thus increasing the supply, thus making the price decrease.

It won't happen, but that's the only way it would work.

I got a Banana Republic Gift Card and Steve Jobs personally handed me an iPod with good battery life and no sad iPod icon. :D

I think this is just silly. People have too much on their plate on a day to day basis already, so they don't need to sit and figure out how to not get gas on May 15. And it does not make any sense that this would hurt the gas companies....for example:

Let's just say that each day 3 million people get gas. If one day, 2 million people decided to get gas on different day than normal, so only 1 million people get gas that day...the gas company won't feel a pinch cause difference was made on another day...get it? There is no "loss".

False hope:
 

Tom;
As you pointed out in another posting, we all have gotten this message at least once.
The reason: it is spam mail.
Go to any of the Urban Legend webs sites and you will find out just how false this is.
www.snopes.com comes to mind-there are several others.
For all of the gas related information on snopes:
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q...&sp-m=1&sp-s=0

For this line of thought:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp

People will get gas when they need gas. No gas on May 15? They'll fill up on the 14th or the 16th. The oil companies will get their money in the end.

The newest one I saw was a plea to stop buying Exxon-Mobil gas because apparently they're the gauge for gas prices and if they're forced to go lower, everyone else will. I found that on my parents' email and deleted it before my mother could forward it.

My Mom received three different UL just last week and two of them were passed out by teachers in Senior Citizen classes!!!!!

I had to show my Mom the UL links I have just to educate her on this stuff as she did not believe that I was correct. She is 82.

Here are just two links about Exxon/Mobil from snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/saudigas.asp

Which is just what this link said: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp

And for those who did not hear it on the news, IIRC we as drivers/consumers in March broke the record for US gas usage. So one day would do nothing at all.
Have to change many other parts of life before that.

Theoretically boycotting one gas company could bring down prices, first of the boycotted company due to excess supply then from the others to compete. But it would require waaaay more organization than a one day boycott sort of thing.

Might work on a micro level too within one city.

But it DOESN'T work, because the gas companies sell to eachother as well. So if everyone boycotted Exxon, they'd just sell their gas to BP and laugh all the way to the bank.

Good point. And it certainly wouldn't have worked with the idea in the email centaur got either.

*shrug* Stop driving. It's the only way to quit using gas.

Stop driving, move closer to work, get more efficient cars.. those are the only ways to help lower the price of gas.

If you don't fill up on the 15th, you'll just buy more gas on the 16th.

not only that, but some people may not even need to gas up on the 15th.

since i live so close to work, i gas my car up once a month. imagine my shock when i went to the gas station and the cheap stuff was $2.70 a gallon when it was only $2.20 three or four weeks before. it's getting to the point where i need to fill up pretty soon and it's already $3/gallon for regular unleaded in my area.

it's definitely making me rethink the super duper high-performance sports car that i've been wanting because i'm pretty sure those require the premium stuff.. and making me rethink a possible transfer to our california office :(

All of these hikes in energy costs have more-less been offset by some pretty huge gains in my portfolio... My folks have made out alright also... They sold some oil royalties awhile back and we just found out they drilled a gusher on that land :)

I too am just starting to look around at new cars and I was very surprised at just how many "normal" cars have premium gas suggested for use.

Wow, that is interesting!!!:)

Ethanol now while cleaner burning gets last gas mileage but is replaceable. Oil, well goodby someday!:D

Maybe not buying for one day, then do as Kevin suggests, live closer to where you work!

I drive 4 1/2 miles a day to and from work and bank, in a Honda!:D I only put $20.00 a time in I need.
But, if you drive a gas hog and live a long way from your job, do you take the Metro of some kind to save?

Funny how many people want to get away from the Urban Sprawl and move to the Rural area and have land to cut more gas, drive farther, for peice and quiet?

Oh, KC is on a big down loft rebuilding, but not any place to shop. That too will come.:)

Really?
 

Are you guys serious? This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Oil companies lose money selling gasoline. Gas is one of the most refined products of oil. Highly refined means it costs the oil companies quite a bit to make it, but they have to sell it at such a reasonable price so people still purchase it. Industial use is what causes the price to rise.

I was able to ask this question to a exxon v.p. Oil companies usually make slight profits from gas stations not from gas sales, but all the shit inside like cokes and candy.

Gas stations make the profits on the convenience store stuff, but I don't know why oil companies would see a dime of that. Most stations are locally owned and franchised and all that, not run by the oil companies.

And a high-up oil company exec would never be anything but 100% honest and forthright with information about their profit & loss, right.:rolleyes:

Actually he is exactly right.

Then it should be relatively easy to show exactly what % of gas prices are currently related to the refining process, and how (and why) that cost has outstripped inflation by a wide margin over the last, say, 30 years, no?

Or was gasoline a loss leader until 2007?

A very fast, down and dirt search found this story from the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092400253.html
Gas Profit Guzzlers

Refiners Captured The Biggest Part Of the Price Increase


"By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 25, 2005; Page F01

When the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline peaked at $3.07 recently, it was partly because the nation's refineries were getting an estimated 99 cents on each gallon sold. That was more than three times the amount they earned a year ago when regular unleaded was selling for $1.87.
The companies that pump oil from the ground swept in an additional 47 cents on each gallon, a 46 percent jump over the same period."

And in case no one heard over the weekend, US production plants and their capacities are at there lowest level in years........

Please do a more thorough search next time. Refineries on average make about 10 cents for every gallon sold. Refineries are at maximum production to compensate for the war and random natural events such as Katrina which shut down pipelines and ports.

The government makes 20 to 25 cents on every gallon of gasoline. Why don't you instead lobby your representatives to lower the tax? Why try to hurt an industry which employs hundreds of thousands of people world wide, an industry that puts billions of dollars into the American economy.

This is a perfect example of people following the crowd and not thinking for themselves.

Edit* I like how current your source is!

Let's try this source, then...

http://www.statesman.com/business/co...asprofits.html

"Gross profit margins on gasoline at the nation's refineries reached $31.22 per barrel last week, the second-widest recorded profit margin in U.S. history, according to data from the New York Mercantile Exchange. The margins are up 57 percent since April 1 and have more than quadrupled since early January."

So where's your source? Just curious, how about some support for what you're saying?

NEAT!:eek:

Do or do not do!

Dat Be Da Question?

Just to clear this up- I think some of you might be talking about gross margin (gross profit) and some of you are thinking about net profit.

Keep in mind too that as the energy markets continue to deregulate, you will see more anticipation built into current pricing. As we have seen at certain points recently, prices for future delivery are more of a driver of current prices than actual supply and demand.

This passes down to the retail gas station owners who are charging you for gas based on the cost of supply they are securing now- not what they already have in the tanks or on the way. It is the only way they can avoid cash flow difficulties in a market with rising prices.

Much of the extra profit that is perceived today goes to the traders (and many of the majors do have energy trading divisions) and not necessarily to those responsible for the actual process of getting the stuff out of the ground and into your car.

Ironically, however, that actually creates a certain long term stability that would not exist if everything traded purely on the supply and demand at a given moment- but it comes at a price.

Yet there is some variability in the marketplace and I think consumers forget all too soon that energy companies frequently go through long periods of huge financial losses and layoffs. It is unrealistic to complain about their profit margins in a specific period of time- especially when there have been a lot of very unusual events affecting supply and at a time when the fundamental nature of the energy markets is changing courtesy of deregulation.

sources
 

I actually just googled 'profits per gallon oil refineries'. it produced a lot of articles dated from this year, not 2005 like Jons post. There is no doubt that refineries make quite a bit of money per barrel of oil, but we are talking about the profits generated from gasoline production.

Soooooooooooo . . . feel free to source your claims.

And somewhere, Shakespeare is rolling in his grave.

Will this affect my Exxon & BP stock??? :D

I'm sorry, but KSig RC......you are a complete douchebag. Why do you need a dumbass "source" from him? Why can't you just take his word for it? Maybe, just maybe.....he actually knows what he is talking about. He does go to Texas......the #1 Petroleum Engineering school in the country......it is quite possible that that is his major and he knows more about the industry than you do. Everything he has said is legit. I've been around the Oil and Gas industry my entire life. Father is an executive, interned at major companies, etc. I'm completely qualified to answer any of those questions without searching teh fucking internets for a bunch of numbers and reports.

....It would be easier for me though to just call Larry Nichols, or A.K. McClendon, or Curtis Mewbourne, of Doug Miller, or Boone Pickens, etc. etc. I could probably write a dissertation on the subject after that, but it wouldn't really matter because you can't put a hyperlink on a phone call. (and if you don't know who any of those people are you should enlighten yourself.)

Sorry, but screw Wille S!

I am talking about GAS!

What you put in your tank to just drive around to much!:rolleyes:


No there seems to be a little margin as was said as there are no refineries that are not owned by Petroluem Companies! DAR! Are they taking the Billions in Profit and builoding REFINERIES? Heck NO!

The hard hit are the independent gas stations and the customers being WE!

So, do not buy or buy!!:rolleyes:

No one can decide for you!:eek: