$4 dollars price of Gas in beverly Hills Calif.

[Rink]

$4 dollars price of Gas in beverly Hills Calif.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060420/capt.la11304202125.oil_prices_la113.jpg?x=290&y=345&sig=j_kqkQARfUAtlTg83AtrtA--

The price of full service high octane gas reaches $4.049 dollars per gallon Thursday, April 20, 2006, at a gas station in Beverly Hills, Calif. Oil prices held steady near record highs Thursday after weekly data showed a drop in U.S. gasoline stocks, raising worries that refiners don't have an adequate inventory cushion ahead of the peak summer driving season. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)


I heard a rumor that by the end of this year we will be facing $4+ dollars a gallon gas, seems its hitting early...

[Riverboat]

Bet they're as mad as a limo driver who gets cut off in traffic by a Porsche on the Santa Monica freeway, causing the movie producer to spill his champagne and caviar on his Brooks Brothers suit.

[Lazarus]

I believe that a large portion of that price is due to California taxes and EPA laws... California Lefties worry so over the environment... I would expect the Hollywood elite should be thrilled over these high prices at THEIR station... Its a form of self flaggelation in their religion of liberalism - a great guilt-relief system...

[DoctorDoom]

If anyone on the planet has no legitimate cause to complain about the price of gasoline, it's the glitterati of Beverly Hills. It's almost certain that one cannot find a Yugo or Escort in a BH driveway.

... refiners don't have an adequate inventory cushion ahead of the peak summer driving season.Far more significant is that America has a shortage of refineries thanks to the ecoloonies and their political toadies.

[Lazarus]

...Far more significant is that America has a shortage of refineries thanks to the ecoloonies and their political toadies.The bill has now come due for the last 30 years of an out-of-control department of tyranny called the EPA... I hope America is ready to pay the bill... Because if we dont re-adjust or eliminate this monster, we will have this situation for years to come, until gasoline is completely unaffordable to the common man...

Time to tell the enviro-nazis to take a walk on the freeway, open the north slope of Alaska, and greatly relax EPA restrictions on new refinery construction...

This government's so-called energy policy is an absolute joke if it does not address immediate new refinery construction... I'd like to see some think tank do a study on what doubling our refinery capacity would do to the price of gasoline... Its time for America to stop hiding in fear of the eco-thugs...

[Incident_command]

We reap what we sow

[PatrioticAmerican]

We reap what we sow

Yup. We sows are now getting raped.

[Rink]

Give it 3 months max you'll be seeing $4 bucks per gallon at your local gas stations.

You may hate the rich bastards that live at Beverly Hills but usually they're an indicator of how fast its gonna go up everywhere else in America, rich OR poor.

If it Does get to $4+ a dollar a gallon its gonna devastate our economy and destroy the trucking and transportation industry like you've never seen it.

Kinda sad that most of the responses here are 'class envy' responses.

I couldnt give a damn right now bout their richness or status, all I care about is the reprecussions afterwards, we're gonna keep getting our pocketbooks raped at the gas pumps till somene gets in their heads to start building more refineries.

But I know the old standard responses will be "Price controls' we gotta control the gas companies in how they set prices, the more the govt interferes with this in the WRONG way the worse this is gonna get.

This entire mess is #1, partly the fault of an overregulated industry via environmental crap. #2. govt taxes from state, local and Federal taxation, #3 the screwing around of the gas mixes Mandating this mix to that mix per state which makes it very difficult to have a nice set nation-wide standard for all. #4, the greed of the big oil companies who love the idea of sucking as much of America's lifeblood out of us as they can irregsardless of the consequences, (they'd love to have us payin at the pump with the same prices as the Europeans are and South Americans are doin right now). and #5 the biggest main reason is the absolute lack of ability to put in new gas and oil refineries due to the eco-whacks constant lawsuits, govt regulation and the EPA blockading such a thing.

Whats more important? the ground slug? or the ability to feed yourself and your family and make ends meet every month and the continued fuctioning of America as a viable nation?

One or the other is gonna hafta go, either the plants and animals be permanently protected and EPA forces standards so strict nobody can operate in America for fear of traipsing on a stupid plant, or human beings will shrug off these environmentalistic nuts and their worship of plants and animals, at the detriment of the American people and at the detriment of a working, functioning American nation.

you cant have em both.

[Beowulf]

Hey, my little Hyundai may not be much but it's cheap to run. I fill it once-a-month just for my local runnings which include going to and from work. It's not much but it's cheap and it's paid for.

What I'm waiting to see is when oil hits $100/barrel how long it will take before Libs wake up and realize that we need more refining capability and it's time to pick a side on alternate energy issues. An underground windfarm won't do well as there is no wind down there but they don't want the eyesore on their lands, for example.

[The_Sonarman]

Having over 100 offshore rigs destroyed during hurricane Katrina didn't help at all. That put a serious crimp in the sources of US offshore oil. The various oil producers took a multi-billion dollar hit from that, and it's a huge cost to replace those resources.

It will get better, people. It's just going to take time. While we're at it, remember the densest area with offshore production and drilling rigs is offshore Texas and Louisianna (especially Louisianna). It isn't terribly uncommon for a hurricane to come winging towards that coastline again.

The US could easily be hit yet again during this coming hurricane season. Consider the risk of all those "eggs in one basket", when we could have rigs up and down the entire Pacific and Atlantic coast. That would be much better, less chance of one hurricane taking out a large part of US domestic production.

I can almost understand California's attitude, what with the Santa Barbara oil spill in the late 60's..... but people, the controls are much tighter and stringent now. Much better control to prevent any spills.

Rink, do you really believe "Big Oil" is going to go out of their way to risk billions of their dollars to develop oil and sell it to you at a loss, or break-even? It is an extremely high risk, dangerous, difficult, expensive business. It is not uncommon at all for one of the advanced tension rigs to cost well over a billion dollars to build, not to mention what it costs per day to run. It is a dangerous environment as well. Injuries and deaths happen.... all to get the mineral "oil". The costs aren't just monetary.

[Beowulf]

I still say we need to tell the enviroweenies where to go and build some refineries. Oil isn't the issue. Gasoline is.

I still find it strange though how so many U.S. oil rigs got wrecked in Katrina as did many refineries yet oil companies still posted a record profit.

[DoctorDoom]

To use an apt cliche, the chickens are coming home to roost. Decades of basing energy policy on the incessant screeching of scientifically illiterate know-nothings is about to hit this country, and nothing can be done in the next few years to stop it.

Even if a dozen refineries were approved tomorrow, they wouldn't come on line for several years. We've let those f**kheads dictate US energy policy while the inevitable crunch drew closer. We're about to pay for that insanity.

And the "global warming" asswipes are going to exacerbate the problem.

[The_Sonarman]

To use an apt cliche, the chickens are coming home to roost. Decades of basing energy policy on the incessant screeching of scientifically illiterate know-nothings is about to hit this country, and nothing can be done in the next few years to stop it.

Even if a dozen refineries were approved tomorrow, they wouldn't come on line for several years. We've let those f**kheads dictate US energy policy while the inevitable crunch drew closer. We're about to pay for that insanity.

And the "global warming" asswipes are going to exacerbate the problem.

All too true, DD.

I know there are those who won't believe this, but Big Oil doesn't really like unstable, rising (and potentially falling) oil prices. They like stable oil prices. Much easier to make determinations where one can cost effectively drill to bring in a field..... since that can take years of work.

Who would want to:

a. determine drilling a certain field would be profitable with a $20 cost of oil,
b. drill, develop, etc. for 2 years in that area, only to
c. have prices 10 or 20% below where one started drilling
d. have a major economic loss, which
e. puts a junior oil out of business.
f. puts a serious dent in a senior oil as well.

Only a "Big Oil" company can withstand a mistake like that, and even an Exxon or Conoco/Phillips can't put up with much of that, either.

But, I'm a bit off subject. Refineries.

Some of the problems with deciding to build a new refinery:

a. NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). Very tough to find a site where one can build a refinery, and the local yokels don't raise pure hell to prevent it.

b. Refineries are incredibly expensive to build and operate. Think "in excess of a billion USD" just to build a new one. Probably closer to multiple billion USD.

c. It costs a lot to operate a refinery. Payroll, Maintenance, Huge Insurance cost, etc.

d. Environmental Impact paperwork, etcetera. Basically, a paperwork nightmare.

e. Getting your ass beat continuously by the enviros, for "ruining wetlands", and impacting the habitat of the three toed wombat, or whatever BS animal is in the area.

My list isn't inclusive, of course. There are many other reasons it's not "fun" or enticing to consider building a refinery. If gub-mint wants to private industry to build additional capacity, the best thing gub-mint could do would be to remove the tons of red tape and roadblocks gub-mint itself created to prevent building refineries in the first place. Then again, that goes for most other industry sectors as well. As always, I can't help but come to the realization "the enemy" of progress is all too often the far too powerful and pervasive US government.

I know, I know, greedy Big Oil, blah, blah, blah, ad. infinitum, ad. nauseum. Well, I'm sick and tired of hearing it, especially from those living off the public dole. Greed, for those who harp so much against it, is in a way "good", to paraphrase Gordon Gecko. Big, and Little, Oil wouldn't be out there in warzones such as Nigeria, etc., taking the risk inherent with finding the oil for your pampered existences if there wasn't a profit involved. Our entire economy wouldn't work if there wasn't rewards to be seized versus the risk that needs to be taken. Oil isn't that profitable a business in the first place. There is a much better markup with banking,

[bannerman]

..the FED EPA who forced some of us to use MTBE in our gasoline have now RULED agaisnt it...

"Pumps go dry at some gas stations"


"Oil refiners are phasing out a petrochemical that makes gasoline burn cleaner but which also has been found to contaminate groundwater.Refiners are switching to corn-based ethanol."

The changeover is creating supply-chain bottlenecks because much work must be done at fuel terminals and service stations to handle ethanol."

thanol is logistically more complicated than the petrochemical it replaced - MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether. Refiners could blend MTBE into gasoline at the refinery and send the finished gasoline through pipelines to terminals.

But ethanol must be blended into gasoline at the terminal because it would mix with water if it were sent through pipelines, ruining the fuel. So, fuel terminals have to go through a similar process of cleaning tanks to store ethanol before it is blended.


http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14391807.htm

[Un Con Troll Able]

Estimates I have read of current world oil reserves is that there is somewhere between 900 billion and 1.4 trillion barrels of oil remaining. Assuming no increase is present world consumption, that is enough to last approximately 40 years. And I don't think anyone would be naive enough to believe that consumption levels will not continue to rise.

Wait 10 to 15 more years -- oil will probably be $200 a barrel.

And it will destroy our country if we don't come up with an answer. Our dependence on oil has already corrupted our national ethic by having to pander to those idiots.

If Iran pulls its supplies, you will see a very significant jump in price.

[Rink]

I dunno why they cant make plain simple-simon gasoline and quit fiddlin with these fancy expensive mixes?

Another thing that worries me is if the price of gas keeps going up it wont be long gangs will be hijacking trucker-tanker loads for their gas to sell on the black market, thereby making a bad situation worse with gas shortages.

[RayChuang]

I think those oil commodity speculators are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise very soon because once crude oil futures punched through the US$70 per barrel barrier, oil products will start becoming an elastic (e.g., consumer demand sensitive to price) commodity.

Already, discretionary driving has dropped quite a bit, and that will start to cut demand big time over the next few weeks. This could end up with overpriced oil and not enough demand, and that will cause an oil price crash.

Hey, be glad we didn't have price controls in place like what happened in the 1970's. We do remember the severe fuel shortages, as there was no real incentive via natural economic forces to achieve economic equilibrium.

[Wyatt_Junker]

4 big ones for 6 miles to the gallon in the Escalade. That's almost a buck a mile. You could ride a unicycle and make a PROFIT.

I think Zsa Zsa is gonna shit when she hears this. Her botox will have to be rescheduled fer sure. And her husband/boyfriend will have to stay off the Hoodia and boner pills.

And since this is Hollywood, the Evian Water Co. stock will probably tank, right along with Grey Poupon and Toiletmaster Shit Two Thousand(the one that comes with the left-to-right bidet whirly bird that squeegees the anus at high speeds).

[DesertFox]

Golldurnit

Good gosh a-mighty

Dadgummit

Dang

Shoot

[bannerman]

I dunno why they cant make plain simple-simon gasoline and quit fiddlin with these fancy expensive mixes?

Another thing that worries me is if the price of gas keeps going up it wont be long gangs will be hijacking trucker-tanker loads for their gas to sell on the black market, thereby making a bad situation worse with gas shortages.


because they are BUREACRATS??

its what they are MADE OF.

MTBE cost untold millions in DAMAGE to OUR environment....even while these morons were touting its pollution reducing capabilities.

there are DOZENS of specific blends....all needless.

the bureaucrats get PAID by the greenie SOCIALISTS.

thats the problem.

even he GAO has tocuhed on this BLEND madness....although not making any common sense COMMENTS on it.

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-421

[ConservativeYouthMovement]

I would say those gas stations are probably price gouging because the rich wont decide to walk instead of drive no matter how high it goes. Another problem is the fact our cities are entirely designed around automobiles, It is far more difficult for me to walk to work when work is up to 40 miles away.

[Riverboat]

Most of them vote Democratic, and the Democrats love to soak the rich to help the poor, no? Don't think of it as price-gouging in Beverly Hills, ConYout. Think of it as an entire community helping a brother out.

[DesertFox]

But who uses full service and high octane gas, anyway? Only Blabs and her crowd, and they like to pay high prices since it's a mark of distinction in those circles.

[DesertFox]

Gas out there should be $10/gal.

[DoctorDoom]

Skroom. They can afford $50/gallon. Let them consider it a tax on the rich. As liberals they'll understand that. Or tell them that they are paying for AlBore's carbon offset.

[DesertFox]

That's it!

"Good evening, Miz Streisand. That will be $12,000."

"What the f*ck! Gas hasn't gone up THAT much, you thieving wetback!"

"I'm afraid so, ma'am. You get to pay for Algore's carbon footprint offset."

"What?!? That fat sumbench can pay his own carbon footprint offset, you brown-skinned taco bender."

"Sorry, ma'am, but you're in Beverly Hills, and all the stars are doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Supporting the ex-veep in his war on the oil industry."

"At $12k per fill up?!? Sam, you got the pants too long, you f*cking Jew bastard mejicano!"

"Uh, er, ma'am, pay up or I'll have to shoot you between the eyes with this here Saturday night Special, you long-nosed bitch."

"Oh, no, you don't, you freakin' beaner! I'll have your jo--"

BLAM!

[DeclinetoState]

The problem with "gouging the rich" is that, once $4/gallon gets into the news for a few weeks, the other stations can feel that they're giving everyone else a bargain by charging "only" $3.50 or some other exorbitant price.

[The_Elucidator]

Every time someone farts in the middle east the gas prices jump! In the RGV we are back up to $2.49 per gallon for the 89 octane crap...

[DeclinetoState]

And more likely than not, that "someone" is a camel.

[The_Elucidator]

Up to $2.59 per gallon today for the cheap crap, $2.79 for the premium.

[Suzie]

Hostages ... democrats ... I am having Jimmy Carter flash backs. :help:

[The_Elucidator]

Hostages ... democrats ... I am having Jimmy Carter flash backs. :help:

Thanks Suzie; I was having a pretty crappy day until now... Your reminder just put the turd in the punchbowl!

[The_Sonarman]

Iran’s reversal to the tried-and-true kidnapping traditions of the early Islamic Revolution sure occurred at an opportune time.

Just a week ago, the Russians threatened to pull out of continuing to sell nuclear technology to the Mullahs. It wasn't because of any concerns about the proliferation of nuclear technology. It was over some unpaid bills. Iran may be raking in petrodollars by the truckload, but it is quite incompetent at economic management. They suffer runaway inflation.

The Persian Gulf is full of Western vessels. What better way to jack up oil prices than pull a daredevil stunt like grabbing Her Majesty’s own sailors off a boat and holding them hostage. It worked for Iran back in 1979. If you check today's oil prices, it’s working right now.