Gas War

This was emailed to me and i figured i should forward it here...i do agree it is a decent idea and could make some kind of change. I personaly have no problem doing this either because i prefer other gas stations anyway.


>> Subject: GAS WAR!

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a
gallon by the summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action.
Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE
SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going
around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because
they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas.
It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join with us! By now you're probably thinking
gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.09
for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost! of a gallon of
gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach
them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers. With the price of
gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.
The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And we can do
that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we
can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we
all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY
gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.
If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their
prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to
follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally
millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now,
don't whimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how
simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it
to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at
least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message
reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE
MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and ! pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it
goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION
PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you
don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do
is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a
mathematician. But I am ... so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten
more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you
didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we
can make a difference.
If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT
UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK. Kerry Lyle, Director, Research Coordinator
>>
Interventional Cardiology Research Laboratories Division of
Cardiovascular Diseases
932 Ziegler Research Bldg
703 South 19th Street University of Alabama @ B'ham
Birmingham, Al 35294-0007 Phone: (205) 934-6163 Fax: (205) 934-7360

[Uncamitzi]

If you do... it will only create a larger drain... If you really want something like this to have impact make some calls on your cell phone to 10 of your friends... DON'T CREATE SPAM... That's all this will do... it will be eliminated by most people's spam filters and ignored by the majority of others...

I agree with the idea... but make it personal... not a drain on an already corrupt system...

Maybe a IM to your friends to discuss it would work too... but leave the email idea alone!

(only my opinon... I might be wrong)

[Earthworm]

Times this story has been posted here: 3

[BordeauxComet]

Unfortunately for me, Mobil is the only place with 92 octane. Everywhere else, premium is only 90 octane, even Shell!

But fortunately for me, it only cost me about $1.20 .

[Sidewinder]

Interesting fact:

Here in the midwest, we get out fuel through a pipeline. Fuel is off loaded in Texas and then sent via pipeline to the Chicago area and then over to the Northeast. No matter the brand, it's all sent via this pipeline. Even diesel fuel is sent via the pipeline.

Some companies can run a gas/diesel mix in their trucks so they buy the fuel that is mixed up in the pipeline and the companies up here, such as those mentioned in the article and others buy fuel from the pipeline. Then that fuel is sent to a specific place and a company's additives are added to the fuel.

So, in the end, exxon = shell = bp = kwik trip, basically..

[Sidewinder]

Today's high gas prices have many roots

Thu Apr 7, 6:19 PM ET

By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - You're at the gas pump, fuming about $2.25 or more for a gallon of regular unleaded. Who's getting rich off you, how'd prices get so high, who's to blame?

Not your local convenience store, where three-quarters of Americans buy their gas. Shop owners make a penny or two per gallon. Their bonanza is inside the store, not at the pumps. They're feeling your pain because Americans are spending on gas what they used to spend on Snickers bars or Slurpees.

The most obvious villains are the giant oil companies and rich oil countries such as Saudi Arabia. But they're just two pieces of a complicated answer to why the price at the pump is so high.

Other villains include, in no particular order: you, environmentalists, the weak dollar, government regulators, Wall Street investors, China and other developing nations. All played a role in creating today's high gas prices.

For starters, many major metropolitan areas have passed laws requiring special summer blends of fuel that are less likely to evaporate in hot months and cause smog. These special blends generally are introduced about now, in early spring, and trigger price increases of roughly 30 cents a gallon during the warmer months in many parts of the country.

"This is the average we have seen every year since 2000, and it is exactly what we have seen so far this year," said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores in Alexandria, Va.

The biggest reason pump prices have risen is the surging global price of crude oil, which is refined into gasoline. Crude oil prices are set on international markets, where price generally is determined by old-fashioned supply and demand. When a product is in short supply, people are willing to pay more for it.

Oil isn't a finished product but a commodity. That adds a wrinkle to the supply-and-demand explanation. It's traded in contracts for future delivery, and these contracts are bought and sold like stocks.

Also like stocks, the perception of risk can be as much a factor as the underlying supply-demand fundamentals in determining the value of oil. Some buyers of oil contracts are users of oil or gas who seek to lock in prices now out of concern that they might rise later. Others are investors who trade in oil as speculators, trying to guess a trend they can get rich from.

Oil prices are being driven up by investors who think the price will go higher in the future. In many cases, they might be acting for you.

"The oil market, believe it or not, is being fueled by your pension fund," said Philip K. Verleger, a noted oil economist in Aspen, Colo. "For more than a decade, investment bankers have been advising pension funds to put 10 percent or 11 percent of their assets into commodities."

The New York Mercantile Exchange last month reported an all-time high in trading for crude oil-futures contracts. Regulators said noncommercial traders, pension funds and the more speculative hedge funds accounted for 34 percent of the contracts last month.

Then there's you, the consumer. Gas-guzzling SUVs help make the United States the world's largest consumer of oil, at 21 million barrels a day. Americans will consume 1.7 percent more gasoline this year than last despite the higher prices, the Energy Information Administration estimated Thursday. It's the analytical arm of the Energy Department.

India and China also are stretching supplies, as fast-developing nations. China is on course to equal today's U.S. consumption of oil by 2020. While the United States imports oil mainly to power vehicles, China imports it to power industry. China's industrial growth, in great measure, is tied to the strong U.S. economy that buys its exports. American consumers pay China's oil bills.

"We're the ones buying the goods from China. It is driving their increased demand for energy," said John Giglio, an oil expert and the executive director of the National Association of State Energy Officials in Alexandria, Va.

Meanwhile, the supply of oil, industry analysts said, is growing at only 2 percent a year. Refineries are running at 90 percent capacity or more. There's no margin for error.

"There is no cushion in the market to absorb any unexpected changes in supply and demand," said Guy Caruso, the head of the Energy Information Administration. Saudi Arabia reportedly pledged this week to pump oil up to the limits of its matchless production capacity in an effort to calm market nerves, but so far markets haven't much reacted.

A single event - such as a strategically placed bomb in Iraq or Saudi Arabia, or sabotage at a U.S. refinery - could spark global shortages.

"We're used to an oil market that if Iraq goes down or Nigeria goes down, Saudi Arabia and other producers can cover it. We don't have that anymore," said Rick Mueller, an analyst at Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Mass.

The potential for scarcity drives up the price of oil.

The weak U.S. dollar is another reason that gasoline costs more. Oil is traded in dollars, and the dollar has lost 15 to 20 percent against most major currencies. Oil companies and producing nations have raised prices to compensate for the dollar's slump.

Your loss at the pumps is the gain of oil-rich nations and global oil giants.

Big oil companies posted record profits last year and should grow even flusher this year. Oil companies will occupy three of the top 10 spots when Fortune magazine releases its ranking of the top 500 publicly traded companies Monday.

Exxon Mobil Corp. ranks second, behind only Wal-Mart. Exxon posted sales nearing $221 billion in 2004, a figure roughly equivalent to the economy of Greece. Fortune ranked it the most profitable company on its list, with $21.5 billion in profits, a staggering figure larger than the economies of Madagascar and Iceland combined.

ChevronTexaco Corp. and ConocoPhillips ranked 7th and 8th, respectively. ChevronTexaco saw its net income - or profit - jump to $13.3 billion in 2004, almost twice its 2003 take.

Oil-producing countries also get rich, by requiring the oil companies to cut them in on the deal. Norway, the world's third largest oil exporter, is thought to have the world's highest standard of living, thanks to oil income. Booming oil prices brought Norway a 19 percent increase in oil exports last year, to $38 billion.

[yesmar]

dude this sucks, here regular is $2.37 while premium is as high as $2.60, i think i will get my bike out of storage tomorow and sove some money

[svxthc]

Bush, get your head out of the oil barrel! One day you'll be paying for your own gas too! Seriously, that article says that gas prices have been rising on the same average since 2000. If prices continue to rise Gas will be 4 dollars by 2008. And by then I'll have graduated high school. You can't call the SVX a fuel economy car, my dad's at best got 17mpg.

[dcarrb]

There is now, has always been and forevermore shall be only one guaranteed way to spend less money on gasoline:

Buy less.

dcb

[RSVX]

Originally Posted by svxthc

Bush, get your head out of the oil barrel!

Most uninformed quote...

EVAR.

the price war idea won't work. The service stations are already selling gas at the lowest price possible. Also are gas prices are still extremely cheap compared to other countries around the world. The only way to save on gas is to use less. Gas prices will always continue to rise because the demand is always increasing and the supply is decreasing. There's nothing we the consumer can do because we rely on our oil powered vehicles. what we need is a alternative fuel to power vehicles that isn't based off of oil.

[NapaBavarian]

The only way to reduce the prices is to reduce demand, because there is a fixed volume of oil and refineries are maxed out we have a problem, if any refinery goes down prices go up, we lost a refinery in texas that produces 3% of the countrys fuel supply and prices went up 30 cents or more, if everyone used 10% less fuel, and just about everyone could by simply using fuel smarter, prices would probably drop under $2.00 a gallon quickly as would the price of crude drop drastically, but aparently gas is still too cheap because when the price goes up just about everyone uses the same ammount and complaines more.

[TheRightWingSVX]

Originally Posted by svxthc

Bush, get your head out of the oil barrel! One day you'll be paying for your own gas too! Seriously, that article says that gas prices have been rising on the same average since 2000. If prices continue to rise Gas will be 4 dollars by 2008. And by then I'll have graduated high school. You can't call the SVX a fuel economy car, my dad's at best got 17mpg.

First of all, Bush does not set the oil prices! Islamo-fascist countries who hate America do! Second, I get 28 to 30mpg on the highway, and usually 22-23 in town, and that is with oxygen sensors that have been on my car well over 60,000 miles. I would say that a well cared for SVX is quite an economical car! To clarify the highway mileage was 60 MPH. At 75+ MPH the mileage would drop to about 24MPG.

[dcarrb]

Originally Posted by TheRightWingSVX

Second, I get 28 to 30mpg on the highway, and usually 22-23 in town, and that is with oxygen sensors that have been on my car well over 60,000 miles. I would say that a well cared for SVX is quite an economical car!

[Sidestepping the politics]:
Yes. Consider the fuel economy numbers on new cars (which are, of course, terribly optimistic estimates) compared to the real world numbers of the SVX. My last highway trip I pushed the old gal pretty hard for a couple of hours and still managed 27 MPG; no doubt she'd return 30 if I could keep the speeds down. For a car of its size, comfort and capability, I think the SVX rates very high fuel economy marks.

dcb

[SVXsnubb]

Back to the matter!

There are some interesting points in the discution.
What happend if the gas price continue up?
The average american will probably drive little less and the next time he or she look for a new car will seach for a more fuel efficient.
The result is not only reduced oil consuption also reduced pollution.

Seen from a Swedish point of view a price for a gallon $ 2, - $ 2,5 is quite cheap.
We are common to much higher prices now 10,8 kr for a liter 91 octan unleded. One dollar = kr 7,05 and one gallon is about 3,78 liter. Calculated to dollar pr gallon is about $ 5,8.
Most people here can´t afford to drive in cars with big V8 engines.