Would be a stupid idea to do so at the moment. Those reserves will be used for a real emergency.

[insert political quip about believing presidential promises here]

Really though, I believe that was only gonna happen to stimulate the economy, but the economy is slowly rising on it's own.

supposedly they have found away to get oil from that shale rock stuff that had been prohibitively expensive in the past. even though iran has lots of oil its difficult and expensive to get it compared to other countries like saudi arabia. there is oodles and oodles of oil shale in the US alone. i actually dont mind us holding on to our natural reserves for the time being because at some point the world is going to get diminishing returns on their wells and then we can start selling ours and we will reap the profits.

as for canada they already are the number 1 provider for the US. its up to them if they want to drill more. that being said we still need antimatter reactors.

http://knopok.net/prices-chart/oil I could see 150 easily then. According to that chart, it tipped at about 140 in 2007.



I hadn't heard about that :shrug:

really. Oil from shale? Holy [censored]...I'm living on a freaking GOLD MINE then. There is a ton of shale rock in the mountain I live on. Well, my parents are anyways, they still own 90 acres of the mountain(used to own literally nearly half of it at one point, 663 acres).

Gasoline is not the only product made from petroleum. Cosmetics, medications, plastics, toys, fertilizers, insecticides and repellents, dyes and colorants, nylon and other fabrics, household cleaning products, automotive products, and home improvement products.

We're still under $4 a gallon around me (for now). $3.99 9/10 is under $4....

My friend walked to work today through the pouring rain because she refuses to pay for gas when it's like this. I have a feeling she's going to be walking a lot more.

my family has land that contains oil and the companies have stopped drilling. according to them, its a lot cheaper to import it than it is to drill here but i assume that due to the [censored] going on in the ME, thats why oil is so expensive right now. we have tons of it in stockpile and there are tons of places where we can drill but we just havent since we have just been importing it.

It's pretty ridiculous up here in Canada too eh. I think a lot of it is just our conservative government is allowing the oil companies to get away with a lot more (without going into politics) and it's almost become a cartel where they can control the prices. I just wish they gave breaks to us Canadians while compensating by charging higher to the US. We pay more than a lot of states for gas

Yes, basically everything. We have the option of finding an alternative, and learning to live like it's 1930 again. Only without even the motorcar.

I'm in S.F., Ca, real pricey over here. I saw 4.39 per gallon at chevron, other places are about 4.30 per gallon.

Everything is pricey over here.

Luckily for us public transportation is pretty reasonably priced here. I would hate to live in a place that necessitates driving a car with these prices though.

yeah, i have to drive around and public transportation is poor.

I never realized you were a fellow san franciscan xXAntibodyXx. :thumbsup:

I barely even drive my car anyway, just when I leave the city. I pretty much ride my bike everywhere. I still take b.a.r.t and muni trains, but I haven't set foot on the bus in years. After 10 yrs in the city and seeing all kinds of psycho stuff go down on the bus, including some guy pulling a knife on me, I'm over it. IMO, bikes are really the easiest way to get around the city. And no one tries to stab you, usually that is.

He's a nooby to Cali.

Arco is the cheapest around here, unless you have a Safeway card, you could always go there.

This

It's more political than people think but I can simplify it down so that everyone can understand why oil is so expensive:

Greed, it's all about the $$$

I'll have been here a year at the end of June. :disco:



I haven't had any bad experiences with the buses here yet, though when I lived near Pacifica for a few weeks I used the buses a lot and some of the stuff I saw was pretty screwed up. I'll probably wind up getting a bike eventually, but for now walking and the occasional bus or taxi (in emergencies only, oh god my poor wallet) suits me fine.

This won't end well :nuke: .

No Safeway's around here have gas stations

We do have Costco though and that pretty much trumps any of the local gas station prices. Unfortunately it's still pretty freakin damn expensive though.

Certain groups that collectively control an enormous percentage of the world's oil supply on a hair-trigger decide to raise prices at even the slightest made-up speculation of any disaster. Unfortunately this is one of the most ridiculous industries because it does not follow supply and demand. The more alternatives to oil there is, the more this certain group has to compete. At the moment no solution exists that isn't highly political, and the babysitters are waiting to change some diapers.

When the time comes we will bump you up to novice.

I've found ampm, Shell, and Quik Stop places pretty cheap too, it really depends on the area. Rarely did I find Chevron on the cheaper end.

Our nation could survive for years and years if we would just start drilling in Alaska. I'm going to be pissed if we go to war over oil with some arab nation because we were to lazy to drill our own oil.

:flamethrower: EPA

Basically you get 3c off if you have a Safeway card. And if you spend $50 or more there, you can get 6c off per gallon.

Actually yeah, the local quik stop is usually around $4.09 which is the cheapest around here.

As must of you knows, I live in Nigeria and work in the oil and gas exploration. The price of one liter here is around 0.4$/l i.e. 1.5$ per gallon. Cool...
There are 2 reasons while the prices are like that:
1/ The short terms trends: the price of oil is strongly fluctuating depending on wars, unrest and any problems. With the current arab revolution in Libya and other Middle East country, the prices are strongly affected. However, this is the indirect consequence of the second reason

2/ The spare capacity. Here there are a lot to say. The spare capacity is the difference between what is theoretically possible to produce (the world capacity) and the world demand. With time, the spare capacity has been shrinking. In 1970, the world demand was around 46-48 millions bbls/day and the world capacity around 53 millions bbls/day. Today we are producing around 84 millions bbls/day and we could produce up to 90-92 millions. In %, our spare capacity has reduced from 12% to a meagre 8%. This means less margin for the prices.
If Libya stops producing, there is 3 millions bbls less on the market. So immediatly, the prices are jumping.
Now, the next question will be: why do we have less spare capacity ? The answers are numerous.
The first might be because we have passed the time of the easy oil discovery. Now, we need to look for oil in the arctic, in the deep offshore, in the tight reservoir, with unconventionnal reserves such as tar sands or oil shales.
The replacement ratio is an important indicator in the oil and gas exploration. It shows how many barrels the companies are discovering per barrels produced.
It has dropped dramatically. In 2000 for the 26 largest oil companies, it was around 150%. For 1 barrel produced, they discovered 1.5 barrels. In 2008, it was around 75%. For 1 barrel produced, it was found 0.75 barrels. Why ? Because we might have reached the famous peak oil.
There might be also another reason. Before 1975, the first oil shock, the international oil companies were dominating the market. The strategy of such companies (like Shell, BP, Chevron, Mobil, ENI, Total, Oxy, Anadarko, Tullow etc...) is to make profit quickly for their shareholders. Thus they have a strategy clearly oriented toward production. However, following the 1975 events in Middle East, a wave of nationalisation occured.
Now, the national oil companies are dominating the market. They have a totally different objective. They want to develop the assets of their countries on a sustainable manner in order for the citizens to enjoy long term revenue. In addition, as governement bodies, they are very strongly process driven. Slow, paper-work, long decision time, political influences etc... I work with them every day and I can tell you, they are sometimes a bit annoying, to use an understatement.
So the situation is now the following:
Super majors (Exxon, BP, Mobil, Total, Shell) have 3% of the reserves and produce 12% of the oil
Other private companies have 25% of the reserves and produce 36% of the oil
National oil companies (governements) have 72% of the reserves but produce only 52% of the oil

This might explain why there is this decrease in the spare capacity. Now, are they doing this purposely or not ? I think there is a mix of it. I do not underestimate the capacity of governement companies to be inefficient. This is my small stones to answer your question.