| testtubebaby |
09-03-2005 08:50 AM |
according to my father (who's a high up accountant for chevron/texaco), this recent development won't do that much for the price of fuel. the problem with rising costs is due to the recent (within the last 6/7 years) mergers between oil companies... exxon/mobile, chevron/texaco, bp/aamco... the problem is lack of competition, so they're allowed to make prices higher, because there's no one willing to sell for less. another problem (and the one to why this releasing of gov't oil won't matter much) is that there is enough oil... that's not really the problem. the problem is that since all of these companies are merging, they're not feeling the need to build more refineries, and thus the crude is not being turned into gas at a rate that behooves them to sell it at anything less. and why would they want to spend more money to build more refineries at cut cost prices? there simply is no modivation. the oil won't go bad, so it'll always be there to turn into gas eventually.
so there's your problems(s) and why this recent event won't effect much. oh, btw, the reason that gas prices raised recently isn't just because they can't get oil into the ports in the gulf coast or whatever it is that the news media is reporting now. in addition to that (which isn't that large a problem) is the fact that the hurricane actually destroyed refineries in the area. so if prices were expensive before with that number of plants, they're just that much more expensive because the number of plants was decreased.
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