jim wrote:SInce it went up before the hurricane hit in anticipation of it, when will it go down in anticipation of the refineries being back to full capacity?
Rat bastards. What a great business - no risk. Every single thing that happens gets passed on in it's entirety to the consumer.
It's a slower process than just turning a switch, and the refinery is back up and running. It can take a week or more to get a refinery back on-line. Then you have to move inventory through the pipelines again. It takes a little bit.
And the jump at the pump is almost entirely the individual retail stores, not the oil companies. There's a lot of risk involved with running a retail outlet, as evidenced by how often they turn over.
jim wrote:SInce it went up before the hurricane hit in anticipation of it, when will it go down in anticipation of the refineries being back to full capacity?
Rat bastards. What a great business - no risk. Every single thing that happens gets passed on in it's entirety to the consumer.
It's a slower process than just turning a switch, and the refinery is back up and running. It can take a week or more to get a refinery back on-line. Then you have to move inventory through the pipelines again. It takes a little bit.
And the jump at the pump is almost entirely the individual retail stores, not the oil companies. There's a lot of risk involved with running a retail outlet, as evidenced by how often they turn over.
So, I ask again. X days before it is really flowing again, will the prices plummet like they skyrocketed X days BEFORE trouble hit? And if that is the case you describe, a slower process than I describe, then why wouldn't prices have stayed stable until a few days AFTER the hurricane?
None of this makes the least bit of sense at all. They try to complicate it and pass it off as some mystery that only high level Harvard educated MBA's can possibly understand, but it's nonsense. It's like selling air, they know you have to buy it so they do what they want.
jim wrote:SInce it went up before the hurricane hit in anticipation of it, when will it go down in anticipation of the refineries being back to full capacity?
Rat bastards. What a great business - no risk. Every single thing that happens gets passed on in it's entirety to the consumer.
It's a slower process than just turning a switch, and the refinery is back up and running. It can take a week or more to get a refinery back on-line. Then you have to move inventory through the pipelines again. It takes a little bit.
And the jump at the pump is almost entirely the individual retail stores, not the oil companies. There's a lot of risk involved with running a retail outlet, as evidenced by how often they turn over.
So, I ask again. X days before it is really flowing again, will the prices plummet like they skyrocketed X days BEFORE trouble hit? And if that is the case you describe, a slower process than I describe, then why wouldn't prices have stayed stable until a few days AFTER the hurricane?
None of this makes the least bit of sense at all. They try to complicate it and pass it off as some mystery that only high level Harvard educated MBA's can possibly understand, but it's nonsense. It's like selling air, they know you have to buy it so they do what they want.
Plummet, no. Slowly return, most likely, as long as there aren't additional problems that arise.
Why wouldn't it ratchet slowly down? Not all the refineries return at the same time. Not all the pipeline systems return at the same time. Not all the terminal facilities get all their product filled back up, and not all retail outlets get full tanks of gas back. On the front end, they all shut down right around the same time.
In the meantime, it's a few extra bucks to fill up. In my book, not a big deal. Not nearly as aggrivating as what led to the run-up in crude prices this spring/summer in the first place.
If you look at the way gas price responds to changes in the price of crude oil, there is one clear pattern: prices rise much faster than they fall. I don't think this is necessarily a conspiracy to rip you off. It's just that when costs go up, everyone responds immediately, but for prices to fall the various owners have to start slowly undercutting each other to steal business.
I believe retail gasoline sales are actually quite low margin and have read that some station owners actually lose money on the gas in hopes of making it up with mini-mart profits. Oil company profits are a different story, but they are mostly reaping windfall profits on investments they made a long time ago not knowing that prices would rise so quickly.
