6 Responses to “Diesel Fuel”

1. #1 by MRambler
   October 25th, 2005 at 7:48 am

   I guess the fuel producers expect the trucking industry to do what they do – Pass the added expense on to John and Joan Q. Public…… They can’t do that with gasoline for the general public….. They have to be more subtle…. Up and down, then up slowly, level-off for a while, then up, down, then up slowly to a higher level, etc., etc……
2. #2 by Sunn
   October 25th, 2005 at 11:04 am

   I never thought I’d see the day when people were happy to be paying $2.50 a gallon. The government really knows how to manipulate John Q.
3. #3 by Jek
   October 25th, 2005 at 8:10 pm

   The Arizona General Attorny’s site has an explanation:

   Why Are Diesel Prices So High?

   Diesel fuel prices are setting record highs nationwide with the highest diesel prices impacting the Western States. Currently, California is reporting the highest diesel fuel prices with Arizona among the top six most expensive states. Some factors contributing to the high diesel fuel prices include; temporary supply interruptions, low distillate inventories, high crude oil prices and strong consumer demand.

   Temporary Supply Interruptions

   Refinery outages and unanticipated “shut downs” affect the availability of supply, particularly when stockpiles are low. When short supply is coupled with the strong demand, as usually seen during the summer driving season, higher prices result.

   In June 2005, there was reportedly a “surplus” of diesel fuel on the West Coast. Oil traders reportedly sold large quantities of diesel fuel to foreign buyers where the prices were higher. Soon after this foreign sell-off, a fire broke out at Chevron’s El Segundo refinery in Southern California resulting in a shut down for equipment repairs. Since this refinery is one of the West’s largest refineries and a top producer of diesel fuel, this temporary supply interruption may have contributed to regional price increases for diesel fuel.

   Over the past few months, several additional outages occurred at refineries nationwide causing supply interruptions. For example; a fire at the BP refinery in Texas, a cooling water system failure at Exxon Mobil in Illinois, Valero reportedly had to slightly reduce capacity at two plants, and Conoco Phillips, Murphy Oil and Marathon also had to “shut down” refining units over the past few months.

   No new refineries have been built in the U.S. in almost 30 years. Existing refineries throughout the U.S. are aging and are reportedly working at or near capacity. In addition, the number of U.S. refineries has declined over the past few decades. So, when a large refinery experiences a temporary service disruption, or when more than one refinery experiences problems at the same time, supply is often impacted and prices tend to increase. While refinery outages and problems are normal and typical occurrences, they tend to draw more public attention and scrutiny at times when fuel supplies are tight and prices are high, like now.

   To Sunn and MR: What would you have the government do? What do you think is the role for government in gas prices?
4. #4 by Sunn
   October 27th, 2005 at 4:43 pm

   Just heard on the news, Exon profit figures for the last quarter were just released.
   $10 Billion. Shell was $9 BILLION!!!! Should raise some serious questions.
5. #5 by J.J.
   October 27th, 2005 at 10:53 pm

   I would have the government to tell the envoromentalists to F.O. and relax the standards that they have placed in front of the oil companies and let them build new refineries.
6. #6 by Randalf the Grey
   October 28th, 2005 at 11:57 pm

   That’s one thing the oil companies want to do, is to blackmail us into relaxing
   environmental laws. I think they need a good stiff kick in the ass instead. If we
   had an attorney general, he would be prosecuting these clowns for collusion and
   price fixing. Did you see those quarterly profit reports that came out today ?

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