Dan J.S. wrote:
Hate to break it to you, Dan, but the price of crude oil (i.e. the
price per bbl paid to the companies that are owned 51% by Iran and 49%
by Big Oil), has very little to do with the price per gallon you will
pay to fill your car or boat. Remember last year? Big Oil was crying
that it's profits were being squeezed by the price of crude oil and/or
damage from Katrina, (and/or liberal environmental obstructionists
opposing the planting drilling rigs in the middle of national parks or
siting refineries across the street from grade schools). In reality,
the net profits from the prices that were raised much higher and raised
much faster than costs were accumulating at a rate that has been
usurpassed in human history. When you're pumping $5 gas at the marina,
don't even begin to blame it on Iran.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/...e/oil_prices_2

Crude oil rose to $70 a barrel in Asian electronic trading Monday, drivenby
concerns over declining gasoline stocks in the United States and Iran's
nuclear standoff with the international community.

From a petroleum industry website:

42 gallons per barrel makes about 19½ gallons of gasoline, 9 gallons
of fuel oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, and 11 gallons of other products,
including lubricants, kerosene, asphalt, and petrochemical feedstocks
to make plastics. That adds up to more than 42 gallons because of
something called "refinery gain" - the processing and chemical changes
increase the volume.

****
So, let's see how good my math skills are. Let's say the petroluem
industry decides to pass on the *entire cost* of increased crude oil to
the gasoline consumer, and does not
increase the price of jet fuel, diesel, kerosene, etc. (yeah, right).
But let's just say......

For every ten buck increase in the price of a barrel of oil, if the
*entire* increase is being passed along to the consumers of gasoline,
(and it isn't) the price of the raw material used to refine gasoline
goes up 51-cents a gallon. In reality, the costs recovered from jet
fuel, diesel, asphalt, etc (products which, combined, constitute the
majority of the yield from a barrel of oil) probably knock the amount
that the oil companies really *need* to offset a $10 per bbl increase
in the price of oil down to something around 25-30 cents per gallon of
gas.

When crude hits $80 a gallon, (and the good ol' boys from Texas will be
charging dime for dime the same price as the Sheiks of Araby), anybody
want to bet that gas prices will only be 25-30 cents per gallon more
than they are right now at $70 a bbl? (I didn't think so).

Once again, the price of crude oil has very little to do with the
amount you will be paying to fill up your boat and/or your tow vehicle
in the coming months. Gas prices are as high as they are simply
"because they can," and the boating industry and pastime is being
negatively impacted by sheer greed among the petro people.