Gotta question or two to ask, and appreciate any input in advance...

So back under Obummer, when oil was running at $150 to $160 a barrel, we were paying $4.25 a gallon at the pump.


NOW it is running $70 a barrel or so...and local fuel prices are running at a lot of places, like $3.89 a gallon at the pump...

So either this formula isn't linear evidently....

Seems to me that someone is making a damn lot of money per gallon right now....

so is it the oil companies... or is it the retailers? ( out here there is little competition whatsoever) or as in the Case of Oregon
Queen Kate finds times like this a convenient way to jack up fuel taxes unceremoniously, not doing their supposed "open administration" to the public
and then just blame it on Big Oil...

with this schitt I can see where anyone involved with oil, will ALWAYS vote DemocRat.. with
Alzheimer Joe and Commie Harris in office, the race is "how high can we go" and get away with it...

and then they are trying to convince us at, getting raped at the pump is supposedly saving the environment... I call Bullschitt..

its evident, we are getting HOSED ( no pun intended there), but who do we put the blame on?

I'm not against a man making a profit, but there is a big difference between a profit, and getting held up and robbed....
all that is missing is the gun to do it...actually I'd feel better and have more respect, if I was held at gun point, when I fork over money for necessities..at ripoff profiteering...

Some how all of this reminds me of the people trying to get rich on ammo and things...
or
The people down in places like Ashland OR, who go in and purchase their groceries with their Oregon Trail Food Stamp Credit Card, and then go load them into their Mercedes or Leuxs SUVs etc, in the parking lot...and drive off...

Value of the dollar/inflation.

Obummer's dollar was worth more than Biden's


SWAG

Seafire, Terrible unconscionable fuel gouging going on here in Siskiyou County. 4.50 for 87 grade average.
And Ashland OR, home of So Or StateCollege...funny you should mention that, I was at Bi-Mart a few weeks back, Shop-n-Kart next door, wife followed a very well groomed lady out and said she checked out with some kind of EBT card thing...we drove around the parking row, and there she was loading groceries in a very new Mercedes GLS class (60 grand?) with a faculty parking sticker from SOSC.

most gas taxes are a set rate per gallon not a %


Gas Taxes by State
State Gas Tax Other Taxes and Fees* Total Taxes
Alabama 26 cents 1 cent 27 cents
Alaska 8 cents 0.95 cent 8.95 cents
Arizona 18 cents 1 cent 19 cents
Arkansas 24.5 cents 0.3 cent 24.8 cents
California 50.5 cents 7.16 cents 57.66 cents
Colorado 22 cents 1.56 cents 23.56 cents
Connecticut 25 cents 25 cents
Delaware 23 cents 23 cents
D.C. 23.5 cents 23.5 cents
Florida 4 cents 30.7 cents 34.7 cents
Georgia 28.7 cents 0.75 cents 29.45 cents
Hawaii 16 cents 2.5 cents 18.5 cents
Idaho 32 cents 1 cent 33 cents
Illinois 38.7 cents 12.1 cents 50.8 cents
Indiana 31 cents 11.2 cents 42.2 cents
Iowa 30 cents 30 cents
Kansas 24 cents 1.03 cents 25.03 cents
Kentucky 24.6 cents 1.4 cents 26 cents
Louisiana 20 cents 0.93 cents 20.93 cents
Maine 30 cents 1.4 cents 31.4 cents
Maryland 26.7 cents 9.79 cents 36.49 cents
Massachusetts 24 cents 2.9 cents 26.9 cents
Michigan 26.3 cents 10.9 cents 37.2 cents
Minnesota 28.5 cents 2.1 cents 30.6 cents
Mississippi 18 cents 0.4 cent 18.4 cents
Missouri 17 cents 0.42 cent 17.42 cents
Montana 32 cents 0.75 cent 32.75 cents
Nebraska 28.7 cents 0.9 cent 29.6 cents
Nevada 23 cents 0.81 cent 23.81 cents
New Hampshire 22.2 cents 1.63 cents 23.83 cents
New Jersey 10.5 cents 40.25 cents 50.75 cents
New Mexico 17 cents 1.88 cents 18.88 cents
New York 8 cents 24.98 cents 32.98 cents
North Carolina 36.1 cents 0.25 cent 36.35 cents
North Dakota 23 cents 0.03 cent 23.03 cents
Ohio 38.5 cents 38.5 cents
Oklahoma 19 cents 1 cent 20 cents
Oregon 36 cents 36 cents
Pennsylvania 57.6 cents 1.1 cents 58.7 cents
Rhode Island 34 cents 1.12 cents 35.12 cents
South Carolina 24 cents 0.75 cent 24.75 cents
South Dakota 28 cents 2 cents 30 cents
Tennessee 26 cents 1.4 cents 27.4 cents
Texas 20 cents 20 cents
Utah 31.4 cents 0.65 cent 32.05 cents
Vermont 12.1 cents 18.36 cents 30.46 cents
Virginia 21.2 cents 0.6 cent 21.8 cents
Washington 49.4 cents 2.81 cents 52.21 cents
West Virginia 20.5 cents 15.2 cents 35.7 cents
Wisconsin 30.9 cents 2 cents 32.9 cents
Wyoming 23 cents 1 cent 24 cents

Oil was 150 to 160 during the Obama administration? I hate the communist bastard but that is not factual.

WTI peaked at $111, was as low as $34, never averaged over $100 annually a barrel during his time in office.

WTI peaked at $172 in June of 2008.

https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

To answer the OP question. The only reason I've heard prices are higher is because gas deliveries are lower because of a shortage in truck drivers. Low supply equals higher price.

Retailers rarely make much off of selling gasoline, for most they barely break even on it and it's used to draw customers into their stores so they can sell them something the really do make money off of.

Now for oil companies, refiners, wholesalers, it's a different story. They'll use any excuse they can to raise prices and in times like these they are making bank. Don't expect it to get better anytime soon.

When oil company stock prices dropped to rock bottom about a year ago I put about 2/3 of my 401K into oil stocks. So far it's been very, very good. Biden's war on oil has done nothing but drive oil prices through the roof and I don't see it changing. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Agree on the price, GWB was President in 2008, Obama did not take office until January 2009.

What we are seeing is inflation pure and simple.

Does not help that some folks are changing up fuel because of the .gov.

Everyone's costs have gone up.

She was far from being in the minority doing that...

I've been in that market a number of times, and I've had this happen multiple of those times..

I get my little purchase of something to eat on the drive home. I pull out my debit card, and the Cashier will tell me that they don't honor those...

You don't honor debit cards", and I show it to them...

My apologies, I thought it was an out of state Food Stamp Card...

More people pay for groceries in Ashland at that market with Oregon Trail Food Stamp cards, than they do with debit or credit cards...
and then look at the cars in their parking lot... doesn't look like the parking lot of some dive discount food store... although the store sure looks like it.
kinda on the dumpy side...

you see some really cute college gals in their, but that picture in your mind bursts are soon as you see the type of guy they are with, and you know they are banging them.... These blonde suburban Portland or California girls sure love to tell their friends back home that they are shacking up with some black guy, or some Hispanic Illegal getting free college, or some Muslim as SOU has a lot of those...

Ashland, beautiful town, lousy residents....

Interesting gas prices in that town too. I was there Wednesday. Over $4 per gallon at the stations on the north end of town at the Exit 19 ramps. $0.30 - $0.40 a gallon at the south end on the Exit 14 ramps.

Falafel Republic has decent Middle Eastern (Israeli style I think) food, but I bypassed that to get something at the Greensprings inn at the top of the hill. No luck, the fuggers changed their schedule and are now closed on Wed

$3.79 a gallon in Merrill I think when I filled up before heading across the border and home.

Gas prices are a racket when there can be that much of a difference in prices 5 miles apart in the same town, same county, same State, same taxes. Someone's making bank along the line I bet.

Oil refineries are laying people off like crazy.

The highest WTI price in June 2008 was $146, not $172. That is an inflation adjusted chart, not an absolute historical price chart.
Charts like that are misleading, if you don’t know what the underlying assumptions are.

Good catch. I didn't notice that detail.

Oil companies don't set prices brokers and traders do. If oil companies could set the price it would never be below what it costs to produce. There are several fingers in the pie between the wellhead.and the gas pump. The biggest take is by the government.

The truth is, it doesn't matter what the price is, people will pay it. I'm not talking about people who need to burn fuel to do their job, I'm talking about people burning fuel for recreation and out of sheer laziness. I see a lot of people who will drive a half mile rather than walk a block and a half. Since I started living on my own, 56 years ago, all infrastructure has been built to promote lengthy commutes and encourage fuel usage and everyone buys right into it. They buy homes fifty miles from where they work then whine about the cost of the commute. So, while everyone will complain about fuel costs, they will still pay it. Where fuel costs are a real bummer is for the logging truck driver who is spending 700 dollars to fill up or the farmer who is putting 200 bucks in his tractor. I spent 60 dollars to fill up the skid steer and 200 for the dump truck. This isn't recreational spending and I burn it up in two days.
Even with the high prices, I see pickups driving down the road hauling a SXS ATV and a half dozen gas cans while pulling a wake boat which will burn through 300 bucks in a day on the lake. They still pay it though.
I was speaking with a doctor a few weeks ago, while he was carving a piece off my ear, and he claimed, if people in the US paid what Canadians do for fuel, and the difference was applied to the national debt, the debt could be cleared in five years or less. I have not bothered to research this but it sounds plausible. We are currently paying about $6.00 per gallon.
I always try to equate costs to what they were when we were newlyweds and I was working in sawmills for a living. At that time, I was earning about 4.00 an hour at the mill and I bought gas for 23.9 per gallon so I could buy, before taxes, about 16 gallons of gas. Today, I think a mill worker is earning about 28.00 so, at 4 bucks a gallon, he can buy seven gallons. Make of this what you will. GD

People will pay for a lot of things. Competition keeps fuell prices under control.

The only reason fuel prices have risen is Democrats.

It always does when a democrat is in office.

Yep. That’s the ONLY Reason.

And you wonder who the oil companies support.

What do you have union sawmills there ? We've got a big sawmill near here. Don't know what they're paying since the pandemic but they were running a help wanted ad in the local paper back in summer 2019 offering 15.59 an hour.

Wifey works for an oilfield service company. Their business has picked up since the price of oil has gone up. They got a 5% raise, first in a couple of years. Oil going up helps some people, hurts others.

The relationship between the price of oil and what you pay for gasoline at the pump isn’t linear and never will be. There are a lot of costs associated with transporting crude to refineries, refining it, and then transporting it to gas stations, in addition to the taxes you pay at the pump, that aren’t related to the price of oil.

I work at a refinery. We lost money all last year and are just starting to turn around now this year. RINS are killing us along with many other refiners. Several refiners have went belly up in the last year.
And yes you can thank Biden for the RINS deal.

Even if crude oil was free, gasoline would still probably average at least $1.50/gallon, between refining and transport costs, and taxes.

So yeah....the pump price does not correlate with crude in a linear fashion.

And then there are the traders...

Shell recently shutdown and mothballed a major Louisiana refinery located at the Sunshine bridge, east bank of the Mississippi River.. Lots of folks hit the streets looking for jobs.

Exxon on the Yellowstone?

No, one of the other two.