why the price of oil and gas is at $70.40 a barrel?
411260
If you invested your money in the OIL COMPANIES before George Bush became president, you would never ask this question. Instead, you would be in HAWAII right now enjoying your investment return with your wife or girlfriend!
507433
Oil prices are set by the market.  In other words, if people are willing to spend $72.00 a barrel, then why would oil companies charge less.  The market corrects itself.  If the prices are too high, people will purchase less oil.  If the prices are too low, the miniscule profit margin that the oil companies already face will diminish.  That is why we pay what we pay.  It is what it is WORTH to buyers.  Simple as that.  If you want lower gas prices, take the bus for a while and wait until the market decides that oil is not worth as much anymore.
640735
Oil prices are high because the demand is high.  \n\nImagine you had a pill that cured every health problem--obsesity, AIDS, cancer, and everything in between.  What would you sell it for?  You could sell it for $1 a pill--because everyone would want one.  Or, you could sell it for $1 million a pill--because everyone would want one.  Some people would sell it for $1.  Some people would sell it for $1 million.  People would fall everywhere in between.  \n\nWell, the oil companies don't have a magic pill, but they do have something that most of their customers cannot imagine living without.  They've realized that they can make a profit at $1.50 a gallon, but they can make a much better profit at $3.50 a gallon.  Why wouldn't they raise their price?\n\nAlthough I think the high prices suck, in the long term it is a good thing, because it will increase efforts to develop new kinds of energy and cars that are more efficient.\n\nBrazil has a fuel that is similar to ethanol that is made out of sugar instead of corn.  (Sugar is their main export.)  Since they developed this fuel, Brazil required cars to run on the stuff, and they are completely independent of foreign oil.  The U.S. should do the same thing with ethanol.  We could be done with foreign oil in ten years.
508328
Nobody knows.  Nobody.  Anybody who says they do is full of crap.  But here's a handy formulat to figure out how much gas should be based on oil prices.  If it's more by you, your gas station is likely price gouging.\n\nA barrel of oil hold 42 gallons.  So Divide the prive of a barrel by 41, then add in $1.00 in refining costs to get your approximate price.  This number only works in the U.S., sorry, I don't know the processing costs for other countries.  And this is for regular unleaded, the premium octanes cost more of course.\n\nSo at $63/bartrel, gas should be $2.50 a gallon.\n\nAt $70, it should be about $2.67 a gallon.\n\nAnd at $50 a gallon, tit should be about $2.19 a gallon.\n\nSo if it ever goes up to $100/barrel like those morons at Goldman Sachs said last year, then you can expect to pay at least $3.38 a gallon!
372469
Lets see, the oil company's own and operate the wells, then the some people that work for them bid on the oil and it is sold to the refinery's which by the way is owned by the oil company's which in turn ship it to the gas stations guess who owns them. Sweet deal huh. I really wonder why the prices are so high.
678289
Gas will go up for this holiday weekend, more people travel more profits got nothing to do with supply and demand. Oil traded over $72 a barrel today. So get you gas before it goes up tommorow for the weekend.
1048854
As you know, the cost of crude refineries pay is set across the board globally. Which in turn they charge the same price. It is mainly these franchise gas station compnaies that change the price, who are told to change the price as the market flucuates. Which in turn the station across the street wants to stay competitive by adjusting their price accordingly, up or down. It's all about the supply and demand now. The United States uses approx. 84 million barrels a day, when our supply is just 85 million.\nAnyway, here is a good couple vids to watch.
478800
WRITE CONGRESS AND THE SENATE AND ASK WHY THEY WILL NOT RELEASE OUR OIL RESERVES???? THIS WOULD HELP BRING DOWN THE PRICE OF GAS!!! ALSO ASK WHY WE HAVE NOT BUILT ANY MORE REFINERIES IN DECADES!! THE OIL COMPANIES PURCHASED ONE A FEW YEARS BACK AND SHUT IT DOWN AND REFUSE TO OPEN IT AGAIN!!The soaring profits have already attracted the attention of many members of Congress. On Tuesday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert warned companies that any price gouging is "unacceptable, and any company who does it will be prosecuted." He urged the oil companies to explain to the American public what they are doing to bring down the cost of oil and natural gas. And he urged them to build new refineries and pipelines. THERE HAS BEEN NO NEW OIL REFINERIES BUILT IN THE USA SINCE 1976! WHY HUGE PROFITS AND THEY WON'T DO ANYTHIGN ABOUT IT!!!
345940
Greed mostly.  The actual physical factors that drive it are production supplies and output demand but these could be leveled off and maintained for the most part so fluctuations come from CEOs of exxon and similar gas refinery companies or Leaders in OPEC messing with prices just to jack up the price to make more profits
43493
The argument is that if the price of oil is high enough we will turn to alternative energy sources, one of which is ethanol, made from agricultural products, primarily grain. This demand for high-priced fuel will raise the price of grain, which is also used for making bread.
172511
Fuel prices are set by OPEC (price per barrel.)  They are most reasonable in the US because our government subsidizes what we pay.  OPEC sucks, they won't allow any other petrol-bearing nations to offer a lesser fee.  They are too powerful.
308833
Well don't we just have number of highly qualified liberal economists giving you answers!  Is there not one liberal who can actually give an intelligent answer - not just repeating Micheal Moore?  \nHave you ever heard of Economics?  Do you not understand that SUPPLY & DEMAND drive economics?  The high oil prices are pretty easy to understand if are open minded.\nCrude oil prices are set by OPEC (that's ORGANIZATION for PETROLEUM EXPORTING COUNTRIES).  China & India are demanding double the oil they once needed because of their rapidly growing middle classes.  The worldwide demand has gone up and the worldwide supply has not increased.  When you have more demand than supply then the crude oil price will go up.  If we had more supply than demand the price would go down.  It's pretty simple an't it!  OPEC controls part of the prices, refining crude oil is the other cost.  Since we have not built any refineries or explored for oil in the past 30 years because of enviromental wackos - that is contributing to the high gas prices.
31992
Some people and news agencies argue that labor strikes, hurricane threats to oil platforms, fires and terrorist threats at refineries, and other general problems are responsible for the higher gas prices. Critics argue that these problems periodically push price higher, but that they are not fundamental or long term enough to cause the large jump in gas price. A more fundamental problem that some believe is causing the price to raise is the probability of peak oil already or soon to be reached. Not only is there a limited amount of fossil fuels which have been burnt as fuel, but however much remains will be used faster by a growing industrialized world population and what remains will be more dificult to get since the easiest wells have been tapped and the remaining sources will be fought over in resource wars.\n\nOthers believe that the price of oil is almost entirely speculative, and that the increase in price is due to oil speculation extending into the long term. These people argue that speculators foresee increasing demand, decreasing supply, or both, leading to a long term increase in the price of oil. If these speculators are wrong, current prices may actually be a price bubble, and the price could thus collapse. A July 14, 2005 Morgan Stanley report suggests that opinions of the oil market could burst just like a bubble if indications of declining Asian demand continue.
1002698
The thing is the oil compagnies don't want to lose money so they brainwash people into thinking the alternative isn't any good.\nMeanwhile the others are  powerless.\n(The Oil compagnies are more powerful than the latter)
481293
There are a lot of events in the Middle East which cause oil prices hit the psychological level of 70 dollars .the main reason is \n"Geopolitics are riding the price" on the concern that Iran s nuclear row with U.S.  oil exports from the world s fouth-largest producer and as a major Nigerian supply outage dragged into a third month .stressing that there was no shortage of crude in the market . As there would not be any supply disruption from iran which pumps around 5 percent of the world oil.And who must take blame for that? its sure thats Bush!
382180
Of course not. \n\nUnlike the case of the 1970's embargo, there is no shortage. Oil and gas are abundant. The oil producers and their cronies realized that a demand for the product exists at a higher price, and have proceeded to manipulate the market to jack up the price. Of course, the government is looking the other way. In the past, everytime they tried to do that, a small portion of the Strategic Oil Reserve was released and oil prices soon dropped. \n\nWhy is that not being done now?\n\nCan anyone guess the answer? \n\n(A cue: remember Farenheit 911?)
330706
Optimum is relative.  Current production is probably sort of close to optimal for the OPEC countries in terms of profits.  It's not optimal in terms of social welfare or price.\n\nIt can probably go up to a few hundred dollars a barrel before people finally get the idea that it might be a good idea to start looking at alternative sources of energy.  The problem is that there are millions of cars out there that run on gas, and it's impossible to get them to switch to, say, hydrogen power overnight.  So, the demand is going to increase over time.