Gas Price Watch: Pumped up … a dime overnight

gasupdime.jpgThis time last night, 35th/Holden Chevron was at $3.99/gallon for regular, which wasn’t the highest in West Seattle, since we’d noted earlier that Barnecut’s Shell was the first WS station to break $4/regular, at $4.03 by midday yesterday. In the past 24 hours, however, 35th/Holden has pumped that price up a full dime … as you can see at left. Don’t know if it’s the highest in WS at the moment as we haven’t done a full survey, but gave us a double-take.

18 Replies to "Gas Price Watch: Pumped up ... a dime overnight"

  • JanS May 22, 2008 (8:54 pm)

    I think it’s just a contest between stations….who can go the highest the quickest…sorta like bidding at an auction…and the thing they’re advertising for is a free ad in WSB…

  • Sue May 22, 2008 (8:55 pm)

    We usually get gas at the 7-11 on California – our car only takes premium, so last night I noticed it was $4.03 for premium. I just drove by tonight, 12 hours later, and it’s $4.12.

  • Jiggers May 22, 2008 (9:15 pm)

    I don’t have a car so to me it doesn’t matter to me, but just getting around in WS on a moped is an outstanding ides for the summer months.

  • kathy May 22, 2008 (10:00 pm)

    Seems like we should be outraged and take to the streets over these prices! Instead, I guess I’m taking the mayor up on his challenge and reducing the trips I take into the city by car: going to work one day from home and take the bus on another day. I don’t think it will cost me any less to take the bus, but less demand for gasoline.

  • Danno May 22, 2008 (11:01 pm)

    If you are outraged, call/write your Congressional representation. They are the problem. There has been no new refinery built in how many years? Why? We have years and years of our own oil in the ground or under the ocean floor, but no we cannot go and get it. Why? Political grandstanding and BS.

  • OP May 23, 2008 (12:43 am)

    If you’re outraged…well…you’re wasting your energy (so to speak). Welcome to the free market at work! You want “someone” to blame? Here’s a list for you:
    Unrest in Nigeria; India’s and China’s explosive growth and demand for energy; Vladimer “Man of The Year” Putin’s excessive demands from Western oil companies for drilling rights; lack of refineries; China owning most of Sudan; Iran’s continued nuclear ambitions, despite the sloppy NIE report; Hugo Chavez, AND his relationship with Iran; Saudi Arabia’s need to protect her supplies from asshat jihadists within her midsts; blame Canada (where we get 51% of our oil; oh, and the biggie (again) blame the free market economy where oil companies that you so despise ALSO have to buy the oil from; and that’s all I care to type for now.

    Save for ABC News who said supplies of oil are “low”; don’t let them fool you…supplies are jsut fine. IF we drill for it off our coasts; IF we invest in drilling; IF we protect SA and Nigeria, IF…we do a lot of things that are otherwise unpopular and un-PC with enviro-weenies….

  • cruiser May 23, 2008 (7:30 am)

    Well said OP, and when the independent refiners actually start to ramp up their margins (as they have been doing this past week) watch out for $5.

  • Jiggers May 23, 2008 (8:49 am)

    Greed will be the downfall of America GAURANTEED!!

  • m May 23, 2008 (9:04 am)

    That gas station always has the most expensive gas in WS; I dont’ think I’ve ever seen anyone at the pump any time I’ve ever driven by there (which is somewhat frequently). I won’t buy gas there ever.

    I haven’t been paying much attention to congress lately, but it is disheartening to see that oil companies are having record PROFITS lately (not revenue, but PROFIT). This kind of greed at the expense of the middle class and poor disgusts me; I’m glad winter is over- how the f*ck are people supposed to heat their homes if they have oil furnaces and maybe live on fixed incomes?? I complain about the price of gas, but I can handle it for now. What makes me mad is the thought that many others don’t have extra padding in their budgets to help the fat-cats reel in their profits.

  • OP May 23, 2008 (9:29 am)

    Oh, and I forgot to add: The 46 different blends of gas refiners are forced—yes, forced, thanks to government environmental regulations—to make throughout the year.

  • jai May 23, 2008 (9:40 am)

    OP… drilling for more oil isn’t the solution. It may lower prices today but it’s just pushing the problem to tomorrow (5 years, 10 years, no one really knows when we’ll reach peak oil).

    If you place your call to your Congressperson, push for them to stop providing subsidies for oil companies and to come up with a comprehensive energy policy that works for all Americans, not just corn farmers in the Midwest.

  • JenV May 23, 2008 (10:44 am)

    IF the oil companies stop gouging us and reporting record profits….IF our own president & VP didn’t make SO much off their oil stocks…IF oil were just oil and not a means to invade a sovereign nation…but I guess anyone who doesn’t support making Alaska look like Arizona if just an “enviro-weenie”

  • OP May 23, 2008 (11:13 am)

    jai: Drilling in the aforementioned areas, if all environmental hurdles were summarily dismissed today, would not only lower price today but in the future as well (oil is a future on the commodities market, remember). There is, in essence, no problem with our supply; there’s is plenty of oil out there. In fact, the Bakken Shale formation in the Dakotas is believed 167 billion barrels of oil, yet only 1% of which is “currently recoverable using current technologies–enough to last us well into the next century. In turn, in most oil fields only the top 1/3 of the field is recoverable using current drilling technology nor is cost effective to extract it at this time. Yet given the rapid rate of technological advancements by mankind over the last century and a half, it’s entirely possible that fields once thought to be “dry” can be tapped once again.

    Look, I couldn’t agree more that we should be looking for alternative energy solutions that will replace oil. But, in the meantime, the world runs on oil and it powers much of what we do and make. In short, we need it so let’s quit pretending like we don’t and that we don’t need it.

    So the notion that our supplies are dwindling is bogus fear-mongering (familiar term) by the environmentalist movement to promote its agenda.

    And while we’re taking away subsidies from oil companies, let’s take away the gov’t subsidies to farmers to make corn AND to car companies that make hyrbids and let the “free” market economy do its thing.

  • jai May 23, 2008 (11:34 am)

    OP: probably a debate for a different forum, but it’s a Friday before a long weekend so I can’t resist. You’ve hit the nail on the head and we’re in complete agreement… we can “invent” ourselves out of the current oil price issue.

    But as you say, we don’t currently have the technology to cost-effectively remove oil from shale and other tough to reach spots. The Jed Clampett days of shooting at a rabbit and striking black gold are long past.

    So it’s completely a cost issue. So the question is whether we should invest all of those R&D resources on technologies that can “grow” crude oil alternatives in the US (i.e. algae, cellulosic ethanol feedstocks, etc) or should we continue to invest in oil companies so that they can extract a non-renewable resource that’s also a major emitter of carbon? I really don’t understand the logic of investing in the latter.

  • OP May 23, 2008 (12:16 pm)

    IF the oil companies stop gouging us and reporting record profits… There’s not ONE shred of evidence to support any price gouging by oil companies. The only gouging going on is by our politicians who keep doing “official congressional investigations” into the matter it and wasting our tax dollars. (This has been done repeatedly byu Congress since the 1970s.) Oil companies may be reporting record profits in terms of dollars, but it terms of profit margin, they’re running at roughly 9%—pretty standard.

    IF our own president & VP didn’t make SO much off their oil stocks Um, Jen, government officials in the office of the President have their holdings frozen at the market price at the time that official entered office. In other words, if the price of Cheney’s Halliburton stock was, for example, $50 a share at the time he entered office and it’s $150 now, once he leaves office he receives it at the $50 price, not the $150. So there’s really nothing made here, at all. Except conspiracy theories.

    IF oil were just oil and not a means to invade a sovereign nation… All nations are sovereign. This sovereign “argument” attempts to connote sovereign as somehow meaning “peaceful”, which it does not, and clearly Iraq was not. And then there’s the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that was official government policy prior to Bush taking office, tthe 17 U.N. resolutions ignored/violated by Iraq, including 1441 under the 1991 cease fire agreement, the countless missiles fired at our planes in the No-Fly Zones for over 12 years (itself an act of war under the 1991 cease fire agreement and grounds for invasion), the ties, funding and intelligence provided to numerous terrorists organizations and endeavors, including, yes, Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist group meant to inflict terror on Kurdish Iraqis (and with very loose but not substantial ties to AQ ), the filling of mass graves, etc. Iraq, sovereign? Even if the word did connote peaceful, the notion that Iraq was somehow a peaceful country is intellectually and morally repugnant.

  • OP May 23, 2008 (12:35 pm)

    So it’s completely a cost issue. So the question is whether we should invest all of those R&D resources on technologies that can “grow” crude oil alternatives in the US (i.e. algae, cellulosic ethanol feedstocks, etc) or should we continue to invest in oil companies so that they can extract a non-renewable resource that’s also a major emitter of carbon? I really don’t understand the logic of investing in the latter.

    I would counter with a similar point: the technology really isn’t presently there to convert algae, etc. in a cost effective manner as to be widely marketable—not to mention the likely high costs associated with likely conversions needed in modern combustion engines. That conversion would take decades even if a cheap, alternate means were found next week. But why subsidize one technology over another? Simply based on the debatable issue of whether or not humans are the cause of global warming (and it is an issue that is incredibly debatable no matter Al Gore says)? That makes little sense in terms of fairness, agree?

    I understand the logic in investing in the latter now because currently oil is the most cost effective means of meeting our energy needs. Should those biofuels some day reach the same cost effectiveness as oil, then—fantastic!—we’ll have a choice in fuels (thus lowering the price of both BTW). In the meantime, drill and subsidized both drilling technology and biofuel research equally.

    (P.S. We’re talking energy; we’re on topic.)

  • TRICK May 23, 2008 (1:19 pm)

    awww, Now the argument of Iraq is being backed up by the U.N. agreements? How convenient.

    Cheney has stock options in Haliburton, he continues to recieve a deferred salary from them (2001; $262,392 in 2002; $278,437 in 2003; and $294,852 in 2004). I’m going to have to read more about your statement as far as him cashing out on the price of the stock only when he went into office. I do believe he can’t sell his current shares while “in” office. But when he’s out, it’s quite the “mother load” in terms of profit.

    Although it’s not brought up the domestic drilling in the U.S still costs about $23-25 dollars a barrell, but is still being sold for $123 a barrell domestically.

    The oil companies were given tax breaks and subsidies as an incentive to build more refineries, which a new one hasn’t been built in 25yrs. The tax money that supports these oil companies overshadow’s any congressional hearing price you speak of.

    Why is it that people scream “less government” but forget to mention our tax money helping those companies making history breaking profits?????

    To think Iraq was not about oil and deferring to the barbaric ways of the Saddam government and not bringing up dozens of other countries with mentally unstable dictators I find is intellectually and morally selectively absurd.

  • OP May 23, 2008 (11:07 pm)

    The oil companies were given tax breaks and subsidies as an incentive to build more refineries, which a new one hasn’t been built in 25yrs.
    Wrong. Dead wrong, in fact. Yes, they receive movies to make refineries to a degree, BUT those efforts have been so cockblocked by environmental groups and tied up in courts that it’s made building a refinery cost ineffective

    Why is it that people scream “less government” but forget to mention our tax money helping those companies making history breaking profits?????

    Again, profit in terms of dollars, not in terms of margin. And I think we need to know exactly what those subsidies are going for; I know in many instances it’s to research alternative fuel solutions.

    To think Iraq was not about oil and deferring to the barbaric ways of the Saddam government and not bringing up dozens of other countries with mentally unstable dictators I find is intellectually and morally selectively absurd.

    OK, then prove the war has been solely about oil. Yes, it’s played some part, but not the conspiratorial greediness of oil shareholders and their companies that leftists like to think the war is about. Morevoer, it wasn’t until just early last year that Iraq’s oil production exceeded per-war levels, and even then just barely doing so. The same is still true today.

    awww, Now the argument of Iraq is being backed up by the U.N. agreements? How convenient.

    The invasion and liberation of Iraq has always been backed by the UN resolutions (not agreements, as you state.) Otherwise, you’re statement is nonsense and pointless.

    Cheney has stock options in Haliburton, he continues to recieve a deferred salary from them (2001; $262,392 in 2002; $278,437 in 2003; and $294,852 in 2004).

    So? He doesn’t receive them as you’re thinking. That money is put into a holding account while he’s in office. And BTW, don’t you think if there was ANY wrongdoing or illegal salary received by Cheney during his time in office that the Dems wouldn’t be all over it like white on rice? Seriously, you’ve gotta be kidding me with this red herring of a point.

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