What is the "real" situation with the reason behind the gas prices being so high?

Answer 1

Despite what the public opinion may be it is not the oil compnanies. Most of the cost in the price of a gallon of gas is for the price of the crude oil which is controlled mostly by OPEC. The next largest price is about 45-50 cents per gallon that goes to the government who contributes nothing to the process of finding, procurring, and distributing the oil.

Answer 2

I feel that the reason for high gasoline prices is that people are just plain using too much of the stuff. When the price gets too high people will stay at home and then and only then will the price come down.

Case in point is in the winter months when kids are in school and the moms and dads can not take vacations, they tend to stay at home, thus less gasoline is used and the price goes down.

Also, the big gas companies have shut a lot of the little refineries, lets just say the independent refiner, down and they no longer can buy the crude at the same price as the big boys and that has really hurt. We can no longer have hits in the system like we did when the hurricanes hit the coast.

Refiners want their plants running at top flow rates. (This is a term that is called thruput). This is the secret to making money in the refineries these days. To put it simply, the more crude oil that you cram in your refinery, the more gasoline, diesel, kerosene and other money making products you get to sell. That all translates into $$$$$$$. All this without added machinery or manhours.

Answer 3

I believe it all comes down to the fact that no matter what the charge for a gallon of gas, consumers will purchase it. We may complain but if the industry charged eight dollars a gallon we would still purchase it. Gasoline in this day and age is required in some way or another in every facet of an individuals existence. You want to work? Buy gas. You want to eat? Buy gas. You want to survive? Buy gas. The reason it is so high is even though people will complain they will still pay for it and the industry that supplies it knows this fact very well.

Answer 4

I don’t get it. Why are we angry at the oil companies? Is it because of high gas and heating oil prices ? But wait: The oil companies don’t set the world price of oil. That’s set in trading rooms in banking houses in New York and London and Hong Kong by young guys who make zillions each year. There is absolutely no evidence that the oil companies are colluding to fix prices at artificially high levels. Those prices are set, again, by traders with Ferraris, not by John D. Rockefeller, who has been dead for many years.

Yes, the price rose a lot after Katrina, but that’s because producing and refining capacity fell off drastically after the storm damage and thus the traders, sensing shortage, drove up the price. The oil companies benefited from this rise in price, but there have been plenty of times when the price has plummeted and the oil companies have taken it on the chin. The oil companies do help set the price at the pump and they set it based on the world price–which, again, they do not set-- to replace the oil they use up. That is a standard way of setting prices and not at all a conspiracy. When the world price of oil falls, pump prices fall too and they have fallen dramatically since Katrina.

Are the oil companies making obscene profits? No, as a general rule they have profits far lower than bankers or pharmaceutical companies, and even below the average of large companies. And anyway, profit is not a dirty word. This a free market country that is supposed to like profits. The oil companies’ income goes to search for more oil, to refine it, to get it to market, and to pay its stockholders, overwhelmingly small investors and pension funds, a dividend. Is it bad to pay a dividend to a widow?

And what about this: when I buy gasoline that has to be brought from Nigeria or Libya or Indonesia at great risk, refined, had huge taxes on it, and then brought to my gas station, it costs less per ounce than a lot of the bottled waters at my local grocery store. Why doesn’t anyone mention that?

How about oil executive pay? Is it criminally high? Well, it’s a lot more than mine. But it’s a joke compared with wall Street pay and Hollywood pay, and what the heck does any movie star do that’s even remotely as valuable as powering this whole nation and keeping the wheels of the nation moving?

I have the sneaking suspicion that this hatred of the oil companies is largely for the reason that teenagers hate their parents: because they are so dependent on them, they respond with anger. But Senators are not supposed to be teenagers and neither are newspapers.

Let’s get smart. The oil companies are not our moms and dads. They’re in business to make money. But they do it fair and square, and without them, we would be in very bad shape. Let’s keep an eye on them, but let’s be damn grateful they work as well as they do.

Answer 5

Thae reason why they are so high is because the job is dangerous and the only people that get the gass are probaly poor. So now they think the job is really worth it. (plus taxes)

Answer 6

48 cents of every gas dollar goes to taxes. Does that answer your question?

Answer 7

Oil companies Scandling i believe

Answer 8

One word... greed.

Answer 9

Idk