How much did you pay for gas and groceries today?

[ALF]

$4.60 down from $4.80 here in Lockport. That's with 1M barrels a day from reserve and temp sales tax cut.

[B-Man]

 

 

Celebrating a 2 cent drop............lol

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

18 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Celebrating a 2 cent drop............lol

 

 

And now we know the rest of the story. All of this is intentional to bring on the Great Transition. Well done, Amtrak Joe! 

[ALF]

The Oil Industry’s Downstream Nightmare Is Here To Stay  Jun 01, 2022

There appears to be no end in sight for the current fuel supply crisis, with summer demand set to spike while refineries run at an unsustainable rate.

While refineries have the ability to bring more capacity online, investors are unwilling to get involved in long-term oil and gas projects.

U.S. fuel exports have hit record highs and the banning of Russian oil imports by the European Union will only add to demand.

"It's hard to see that refinery utilization can increase much," Gary Simmons, chief commercial officer of Valero, told Reuters. "We've been at this 93% utilization; generally, you can't sustain it for long periods of time."

 

Interestingly enough, despite the imbalance in supply and demand, which has pushed the crack spreads to the highest in years, refiners do not seem to be planning new capacity additions. The reasons: time and investor sentiment.

 

"Investors do not want to see companies pouring money into organic oil and gas growth," Jason Gabelman, director at Cowen, told Marketplace last month. In addition to this, building a new refinery is a lengthy and expensive endeavor that few refiners appear to believe is justified despite the record crack spreads. Also, investors have become more impatient and don't want to wait for returns from projects such as new refineries.

 

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Oil-Industrys-Downstream-Nightmare-Is-Here-To-Stay.html

[TSOL]

China's buying up all that cheap Russian crude. $80 bucks a barrel 

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/china-refiners-buy-russian-oil-cheap-ukraine-conflict-sanctions-ft-2022-5?op=1

[Big Blitz]

Yep....

[ALF]

Oil Jumps After EIA Confirms Large Crude Inventory Draw   Jun 02, 2022

“The crude oil price is $120 per barrel but the product price — what you and I pay for petrol and diesel — is much, much higher. The overarching theme is the lack of investment,” Amrita Sen from Energy Aspects told the FT this week.

 

“We are in this for the long haul: potentially a decade,” the analyst added.

 

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Oil-Jumps-After-EIA-Confirms-Large-Crude-Inventory-Draw.html

 

I think we are going to need a bigger Keystone Pipeline , what does the squad think

Edited June 3, 2022 by ALF

[sherpa]

50 minutes ago, ALF said:

 

I think we are going to need a bigger Keystone Pipeline , what does the squad think

 

I think it is insanity and horrific leadership that stifles responsible, available energy, domestically produced.

 

Promoting renewables while avoiding economic shock from fossils geopolitical nonsense is possible. Not even hard.

We simply need to believe corporate America more than political America.

Always been that way, with very few exceptions.

[ALF]

Chevron CEO says there may never be another oil refinery built in the U.S.
Mike Wirth points to the federal government's policies on energy

"There hasn’t been a refinery built in this country since the 1970s," Wirth said at Bernstein's Strategic Decisions Conference this week, when asked about the prospect of new capacity being added in the Gulf of Mexico. "I personally don’t believe there will be a new petroleum refinery ever built in this country again."

 

"Capacity is added by de-bottlenecking existing units by investing in existing refineries," he explained. "But what we’ve seen over the last two years are shutdowns. We’ve seen refineries closed. We’ve seen units come down. We’ve seen refineries being repurposed to become bio refineries. And we live in a world where the policy, the stated policy of the U.S. government is to reduce demand for the products that refiners produce."

 

"At every level of the system, the policy of our government is to reduce demand, and so it’s very hard in a business where investments have a payout period of a decade or more," Wirth said. "And the stated policy of the government for a long time has been to reduce demand for your products." 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/chevron-ceo-oil-refinery-built-u-s

 

Being a retired Delphi  worker I'm looking for one last vehicle to replace my reliable 2008 Chevy Cobalt. Had my eye on a new Chevy Trailblazer . With the price of gas predicted to stay high reluctantly started looking at electric vehicles. Might have to look at a non GM electric car whose tax credit ran out. I hate climate change, wonder if my old garage can be wired , old house is already at limit forget doing away with natural gas.

Edited June 6, 2022 by ALF

[Precision]

Was just at the Mobile in Manchester, NH.  Needed to fill up a U-Haul for moving my daughter.

Regular is $5.00, Super is $5.55

Highest I've seen yet!

[dhg]

Not gas or groceries, but had to buy chlorine for pool today. $200 for a bucket of 3" tabs. $50 more than a year ago. $100 more than 2 years ago. 

[SoCal Deek]

11 hours ago, Precision said:

Was just at the Mobile in Manchester, NH.  Needed to fill up a U-Haul for moving my daughter.

Regular is $5.00, Super is $5.55

Highest I've seen yet!

Well don’t move her to California. It’s almost $7.00 per gallon out here. 😉

[Big Blitz]

4.95 in Northern VA today!!  

 

 

 

LGB!!

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

2 hours ago, Big Blitz said:

4.95 in Northern VA today!!  

 

 

 

LGB!!

 

 

I’ll be right there! Hold my place in line. Of course it’ll cost me $52,587 in gas to to get there and back….but I love a bargain.

[BillsFanNC]

 

[Big Blitz]

44 minutes ago, DRsGhost said:

 

 

 

No one look at the economic disaster we're in and surely getting worse - you'd hear about it 24/7 if Trump were in office.  

 

Instead, you're deliberately being led to think that gun violence and "mass shootings" are what's happening 24/7.

 

[B-Man]

 

 

Oh Debbie.

 

 

 

[PetermansRedemption]

17 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Oh Debbie.

 

 

 

Elitism at its finest. 

[VaMilBill]

This is very frustrating how expensive everything is. My grocery bill is now at $150 per trip instead of $100, which is for my family. 
 

I don’t want to drive at all either because gas is so expensive. So I literally minimize how much I drive a day. I used to do road-trips with the family but now we’ve turned that off. Gas is going to hit $5 on the national average soon. 
 

the worst part of it is there is no relief in sight. It’s only going to go up. And the democrats want to talk about going green then provide an available, affordable option. I don’t want to eat into my savings at all either. 
 

I just don’t see how Biden won’t take action and open up drilling at home. He’s hurting everyone’s wallets. And I don’t see how democrats could vote for him or democrat policies after this. It’s absurd. 
 

 

[Tiberius]

10 minutes ago, VaMilBill said:

This is very frustrating how expensive everything is. My grocery bill is now at $150 per trip instead of $100, which is for my family. 
 

I don’t want to drive at all either because gas is so expensive. So I literally minimize how much I drive a day. I used to do road-trips with the family but now we’ve turned that off. Gas is going to hit $5 on the national average soon. 
 

the worst part of it is there is no relief in sight. It’s only going to go up. And the democrats want to talk about going green then provide an available, affordable option. I don’t want to eat into my savings at all either. 
 

I just don’t see how Biden won’t take action and open up drilling at home. He’s hurting everyone’s wallets. And I don’t see how democrats could vote for him or democrat policies after this. It’s absurd. 
 

 

No blaming Putin? Seriously, just blame our president who has nothing to do with it?

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

11 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

No blaming Putin? Seriously, just blame our president who has nothing to do with it?

 

 

Can we blame them both?

[TSOL]

The only relief from this new economy is going to come from voting republican in 2024.

 

This administration and the entire liberal progressive agenda is to blame for this economy. 

[B-Man]

12 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

 

 blame our president who has nothing to do with it?

 

 

 

Every time I think that Tibs can't go any lower,

 

there he goes.

 

 

Contrast that statement with everything else he has claimed previously.

 

 

[Tiberius]

2 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Every time I think that Tibs can't go any lower,

 

there he goes.

 

 

Contrast that statement with everything else he has claimed previously.

 

 

Great evidence B-Man 

 

Your outrage fits your ignorance 

[TSOL]

You knew we were screwed when the first thing the Biden administration did was mandate the firing of nurses smack dab in the middle of a health care crisis 

 

[dpberr]

Gas prices will be $6 by July 4th, not Labor Day.  Labor Day, it'll be at or near $8.  I expect that to occur because this administration wouldn't have let the prices break the $5 barrier if they either knew how or cared to.  They know they've crossed the political Rubicon with gas prices.    

 

Target having record inventory in TVs and house "stuff" is another microcosm sign of customers throttling down discretionary spending.  It's not Target overreaction to COVID, it's customers cutting back. 

 

I've also noticed that for restaurants where you'd have to wait for a table, there's no longer a wait.  In my area, people enjoy dining out on the weekend, and restaurants are usually quite full, even in previous downturns, they'd be busy.  Past couple weekends, easy to get a seat without the wait, which suggests to me folks are beginning to throttle down that discretionary dining spending too.  

[Tiberius]

3 minutes ago, dpberr said:

Gas prices will be $6 by July 4th, not Labor Day.  Labor Day, it'll be at or near $8.  I expect that to occur because this administration wouldn't have let the prices break the $5 barrier if they either knew how or cared to.  They know they've crossed the political Rubicon with gas prices.    

 

Target having record inventory in TVs and house "stuff" is another microcosm sign of customers throttling down discretionary spending.  It's not Target overreaction to COVID, it's customers cutting back. 

 

I've also noticed that for restaurants where you'd have to wait for a table, there's no longer a wait.  In my area, people enjoy dining out on the weekend, and restaurants are usually quite full, even in previous downturns, they'd be busy.  Past couple weekends, easy to get a seat without the wait, which suggests to me folks are beginning to throttle down that discretionary dining spending too.  

The administration what? They control gas prices? 

[TSOL]

 

1 minute ago, Tiberius said:

The administration what? They control gas prices? 

 

 

Yep. Natural gas too, I guess we are running out of that despite NYS having massive natural gas resources. 

 

Weird huh 

[Tiberius]

11 minutes ago, TSOL said:

 

 

 

Yep. Natural gas too, I guess we are running out of that despite NYS having massive natural gas resources. 

 

Weird huh 

So you do not understand economics. Thanks for sharing 

[SoCal Deek]

People please....let's all just agree that the most powerful man in the world should be considered blameless on inflation (and everything else)....and instead lay all of the responsibility at the feet of some dude on the other side of the planet that apparently is the one actually in control of everything?  It's so much easier! 

[Tiberius]

Maybe God is trying to tell us something? Record heat all across the south west 

Quote

 

Midland, Tex., topped 100 degrees for the 13th time in 2022, more than twice as many times as in 2021.

Little change in the scorching weather pattern is expected for days over the Lone Star State. Most of central, south and west Texas will sit near or just above the century mark through at least early next week. Numerous additional record highs are predicted each day.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/07/heat-wave-texas-southwest-phoenix/

26 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

People please....let's all just agree that the most powerful man in the world should be considered blameless on inflation (and everything else)....and instead lay all of the responsibility at the feet of some dude on the other side of the planet that apparently is the one actually in control of everything?  It's so much easier! 

Ha ha, you don't understand economics 

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, Tiberius said:

Maybe God is trying to tell us something? Record heat all across the south west 

 

 

 

By God....do you really mean Putin? 😉

[Tiberius]

2 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

By God....do you really mean Putin? 😉

Oh yes, Putin made it hot 

[SoCal Deek]

23 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Oh yes, Putin made it hot 

Keep your sense of humor Tibs…if you have one.

[VaMilBill]

4 hours ago, Tiberius said:

No blaming Putin? Seriously, just blame our president who has nothing to do with it?

 

 

Biden fostered a geopolitical environment where he emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine. I don’t think Ukraine would have been invaded under Trump. 
 

on top of that, gas prices were already about 30% more expensive under Biden than under Trump. So yea, Biden does deserve a significant amount of blame

[All_Pro_Bills]

4 hours ago, Tiberius said:

The administration what? They control gas prices? 

The administration has the power to regulate interstate commerce and international trade.  Issue regulations for refiners, pipelines, emissions standards, rules and regulations regarding transport of materials and products, rules and bidding for exploration and mineral rights.  Issuing permits and performing environmental assessments and in most cases slow-walking the process.  All kinds of things.  Plus there are regulations at the State level.  Regarding seasonal gasoline blends and standards like ethanol content.  They also decided to ship large amounts of US produced nat gas to Europe in the form of LNG exports.  They've issued sanctions, trade restrictions, and asset confiscation and freezing activities that have disrupted domestic and international commerce and trade.  Putin did some of it but most of it is self-inflicted reaction and the result and consequences of sanctions. To top it off as soon as Biden cancelled Keystone on day one I knew we were screwed.  So none of this is unexpected and its going to get a lot worse.  If his approval rating is above 20% by the mid-terms I'll be amazed.  He's letting climate activism dominate policy and he's going to pay to the extreme in November.  I don't know anyone that's happy with this administration.   The consensus is they just don't care and for that they're going to get run out of town.      

[ALF]

Sen Kennedy said the price of gas is so expensive in Louisiana it's cheaper to buy cocaine and run everywhere.🙂

[Demongyz]

$6.05/g 87 octane today.

 

over 100% increase since Joe took office.  

 

But mean tweets!!!

[ComradeKayAdams]

On 6/8/2022 at 6:11 PM, All_Pro_Bills said:

The administration has the power to regulate interstate commerce and international trade.  Issue regulations for refiners, pipelines, emissions standards, rules and regulations regarding transport of materials and products, rules and bidding for exploration and mineral rights.  Issuing permits and performing environmental assessments and in most cases slow-walking the process.  All kinds of things.  Plus there are regulations at the State level.  Regarding seasonal gasoline blends and standards like ethanol content.  They also decided to ship large amounts of US produced nat gas to Europe in the form of LNG exports.  They've issued sanctions, trade restrictions, and asset confiscation and freezing activities that have disrupted domestic and international commerce and trade.  Putin did some of it but most of it is self-inflicted reaction and the result and consequences of sanctions. To top it off as soon as Biden cancelled Keystone on day one I knew we were screwed.  So none of this is unexpected and its going to get a lot worse.  If his approval rating is above 20% by the mid-terms I'll be amazed.  He's letting climate activism dominate policy and he's going to pay to the extreme in November.  I don't know anyone that's happy with this administration.   The consensus is they just don't care and for that they're going to get run out of town.      

 

I highlighted two points of contention in your post:

 

1. It’s not that they don’t care, “they” being the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress. They are simply constrained by what their corporate donors allow them to do. And in the case of many like Biden, at this point in their lives they are also probably too entrenched in neoliberal philosophy to explore aggressive alternative actions. I do have a tinfoil hat theory for you, however: the Democrats see a harrowingly unlikely path to victory over the next two years, so their plan is to make Biden/Harris the scapegoats and elevate someone more salable like Gavin Newsom during the 2024 presidential primaries. Hey, it would work on me! I hate Newsom, but I’d still vote for him over the rebranded trickle-down economics nonsense that the GOP always peddles as their economic panacea.

 

2. Even if the Keystone Pipeline System was fully functional at this very moment, it would only put a VERY modest dent on overall gas prices. This very modest dent doesn’t come close to justifying all the environmental damage that it would eventually create. Further exploitation of the Athabasca tar sands should not be encouraged in any way. And what about the Indigenous groups that the pipeline construction affects? And what about that whole climate change thing? The boreal forests of Western Canada are way too important for combating MMGW. The Keystone Pipeline System would mostly help Canada, anyway, but not the U.S. in terms of jobs. I would advise Western Canadians to find other ways to grow their economy.

 

Since the inflation topic is by far the most important one in politics today, FWIW here’s my little contribution to PPP:

 

What I think Biden should generally be doing to ameliorate the problem:

 

1. Issue a series of executive orders that expedite supply chain networks, especially at shipping port bottlenecks.

2. Publicly articulate a clear short-term and long-term national energy plan so that fossil fuel companies can better anticipate demand and moderate their releases of supply, thereby stabilizing some of the inflationary pressures (much of which is still a consequence of fossil fuel supply shocks).

3. Provide any sort of Keynesian-esque demand-side relief to working-class families (tax relief, energy credits, etc…just do something for them, please…).

 

What is or what has been (mostly) out of Biden’s control:

 

1. Anthropogenic global warming constraints on public policy (note to anyone who still thinks it’s a myth: please reply to me with a published post-July 1988 scientific research paper that either refutes the observed warming altogether or explains it with any mechanism other than atmospheric carbon dioxide ppm…a published scientific research paper, please; not a link to some random fella’s website…).

2. Fossil fuel oligarchic control of government since the 1970’s energy crisis (they are chiefly responsible for our country’s relatively pathetic state of renewable energy research/development at this present moment in time).

3. Enormous global supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 and its subsequent variants.

4. General supply chain weaknesses on the U.S. side that were exposed by the pandemic and that were, in large part, due to decades of outsourcing of domestic manufacturing jobs.

5. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that has affected much of the fossil fuel energy and wheat/grain food markets.

6. The world economic market for fossil fuels that sets the supply, the demand, and thus our prices of oil and gas independent of U.S. political decisions.

7. The privatized status of the U.S. fossil fuel industry, which means that these companies are largely free to sell domestic supply wherever they want in the world, make use of drilling permits however they want, and thereby drive domestic energy supply/demand/costs (to some extent) to their own financial advantage and not necessarily for any greater societal good.

8. The cumulative effects of American imperialism since the advent of the Cold War that have limited import/export options on the international energy markets.

 

[SoCal Deek]

9 minutes ago, Delete_Account said:

 

I highlighted two points of contention in your post:

 

1. It’s not that they don’t care, “they” being the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress. They are simply constrained by what their corporate donors allow them to do. And in the case of many like Biden, at this point in their lives they are also probably too entrenched in neoliberal philosophy to explore aggressive alternative actions. I do have a tinfoil hat theory for you, however: the Democrats see a harrowingly unlikely path to victory over the next two years, so their plan is to make Biden/Harris the scapegoats and elevate someone more salable like Gavin Newsom during the 2024 presidential primaries. Hey, it would work on me! I hate Newsom, but I’d still vote for him over the rebranded trickle-down economics nonsense that the GOP always peddles as their economic panacea.

 

2. Even if the Keystone Pipeline System was fully functional at this very moment, it would only put a VERY modest dent on overall gas prices. This very modest dent doesn’t come close to justifying all the environmental damage that it would eventually create. Further exploitation of the Athabasca tar sands should not be encouraged in any way. And what about the Indigenous groups that the pipeline construction affects? And what about that whole climate change thing? The boreal forests of Western Canada are way too important for combating MMGW. The Keystone Pipeline System would mostly help Canada, anyway, but not the U.S. in terms of jobs. I would advise Western Canadians to find other ways to grow their economy.

 

Since the inflation topic is by far the most important one in politics today, FWIW here’s my little contribution to PPP:

 

What I think Biden should generally be doing to ameliorate the problem:

 

1. Issue a series of executive orders that expedite supply chain networks, especially at shipping port bottlenecks.

2. Publicly articulate a clear short-term and long-term national energy plan so that fossil fuel companies can better anticipate demand and moderate their releases of supply, thereby stabilizing some of the inflationary pressures (much of which is still a consequence of fossil fuel supply shocks).

3. Provide any sort of Keynesian-esque demand-side relief to working-class families (tax relief, energy credits, etc…just do something for them, please…).

 

What is or what has been (mostly) out of Biden’s control:

 

1. Anthropogenic global warming constraints on public policy (note to anyone who still thinks it’s a myth: please reply to me with a published post-July 1988 scientific research paper that either refutes the observed warming altogether or explains it with any mechanism other than atmospheric carbon dioxide ppm…a published scientific research paper, please; not a link to some random fella’s website…).

2. Fossil fuel oligarchic control of government since the 1970’s energy crisis (they are chiefly responsible for our country’s relatively pathetic state of renewable energy research/development at this present moment in time).

3. Enormous global supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 and its subsequent variants.

4. General supply chain weaknesses on the U.S. side that were exposed by the pandemic and that were, in large part, due to decades of outsourcing of domestic manufacturing jobs.

5. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that has affected much of the fossil fuel energy and wheat/grain food markets.

6. The world economic market for fossil fuels that sets the supply, the demand, and thus our prices of oil and gas independent of U.S. political decisions.

7. The privatized status of the U.S. fossil fuel industry, which means that these companies are largely free to sell domestic supply wherever they want in the world, make use of drilling permits however they want, and thereby drive domestic energy supply/demand/costs (to some extent) to their own financial advantage and not necessarily for any greater societal good.

8. The cumulative effects of American imperialism since the advent of the Cold War that have limited import/export options on the international energy markets.

 

Thanks for the thesis paper, Kay.