A dramatic spike in wholesale gasoline prices has made fuel harder to find at some Southern California locations.
Many mom-and-pop stations have temporarily quit buying gas on the wholesale market because it’s become too expensive, said Jeffrey Spring, an
analyst with the Automobile Club of Southern California.
A number of Costco locations are also not selling fuel, though the company has not said why.
Spring downplayed the idea that there is an actual shortage of fuel in the area, saying that wholesalers still have unsold inventory that they could
sell to gas station owners who want to buy it.
But, he said, a number of factors have caused prices to rise so high – and so fast – that some gas station owners are afraid to buy it. They worry
that they will have to mark up the gas by as much as 50 cents per gallon – and fear that consumers will balk at paying that much, he said.
There are several reasons for the spike in prices a the wholesale market for gasoline. First, he said, wholesalers deliberately let their supplies of the
special summer formulation of gas required by California state law for use in the warmer months, because they expected an influx of the lessexpensive fuel used in the fall and winter.
But then, a power outage at a major refinery and fears of contamination in a Kern County pipeline drove supplies down further. To make matters
worse, a Northern California refinery struck by fire earlier this year is still not back up to capacity, Spring said.
“Concerns in the wholesale market caused retailers to panic a couple of days ago,” he said.
Many purchased supplies quickly and pushed prices way up.
The impact at the pump was immediate: prices at the retail level rose 9 cents per gallon overnight last night.
“It’s the biggest spike we’ve seen all year,” Spring said.
The Auto Club is expecting the price hikes to be “severe, but short-lived,” Spring said
Damn those greedy fuckers who enable your lifestyle of leisure! If you don't want to enable them, stop using their product. Otherwise, shut the hell up. You are not entitled to anything. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.Was talking to my bro last night, he was wondering how crude oil price is dropping but refined oil price is rising. I said, 'cause big oil is run by a bunch of greedy fuckers.
Presumably, refiners input cost have gone down and they are gouging customers right now. But because of increased profit margin, hopefully they overproduce and produce glut which later drives down prices in your area. And if it is any solace (probably not), aggressive drawdown of existing gasoline stockpiles hopefully reflects that economy in your area is doing pretty well, despite scary and depressing headlines one may see on tv or read on internet."An Aug. 6 fire in a unit of a key Chevron refinery – with a capacity of 245,000 barrels a day – in Richmond prompted a 25.8-cent spike in the average price of Sacramento-area gas within just a few days, and prices have hardly moved since then, hovering around the $4.07-$4.10 range.
This time, analysts pointed to multiple refinery issues, curbing gas supplies that analysts said were already tight following the Richmond fire.
A Monday power outage at ExxonMobil's 150,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Torrance disrupted its output. Dow Jones said the company is now "normalizing" production.
Also on Monday, Chevron's Kettleman-Los Medanos pipeline, which delivers crude to Bay Area refiners, was shut down after elevated levels of organic chloride were detected in the oil. The line is rated at 85,000 barrels a day.
In-state supplies have been further limited by maintenance work at Phillips 66 facilities in the Bay Area and Southern California."
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/04/48...y-to.html#mi_rss=Transportation#storylink=cpy
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-oil-price-differentials-caught-between-sands-and-pipelines"Today, refineries in PADD I on the East Coast process oil shipped to the district's Atlantic ports from all over the world. Its refineries produce enough petroleum products to meet about one-third of regional demand; the rest comes from imports of refined products, primarily from the Gulf Coast but also from Europe. PADD V, on the West Coast, processes domestic oil from California and Alaska, as well as imported oil.
While the East- and West-Coast PADDs are not connected to the rest of the crude oil system, PADDs II, III, and IV have become very interdependent. PADD III, on the Gulf Coast, has more refining capacity than anywhere in the world and accounts for 45% of total US capacity, with 45 refineries processing more than 8 million barrels of oil per day from countries like Mexico and Venezuela as well as domestic sources. Refineries in the Midwest and California push the US's total refining capacity to 18 million barrels of oil a day."
I just paid $4.64 for 89.My wife said she paid $4.65/gallon for premium this morning...
No lube and you're bent over 55 gallons of oil?Yep...we're getting bent over the barrel and fucked in the ass...WITHOUT the benefit of lubrication. (that costs extra.)
No lube and you're bent over 55 gallons of oil?