Are Oil companies holding back on Gas till prices keep going up to make record profits ?
414865
Well hell, they have made a killing already.  Record high.\nThere is one thing that some people will never understand and that is that there are some Corporations throughout the world that don't give a darn about nations, peoples, only their own continued wealth.  In other words there are the haves and the have knots.  And the haves basically can bring down the economies of the world, and still have their kingdoms.  Fact is that just some of the masses these days enjoy more than the past and a bit more educated and thus see what is going on, but still are the masses of haves wanna bees.
469357
the problem is that people don't understand the difference between profit and profit margins.  When the cost of Oil (a tradeable commodity) doubles, oil companies will pay twice as much for oil and their cut becomes bigger (twice as big in fact)
858018
I'm a long-term investor and believe in holding stocks... for decades.  If your gut, however, is telling you to take a profit... there's no harm in it.  And if you think some other stocks show more potential, no reason to hold off reinvesting in those.  As for me, I'm keeping my oil stocks... indefinitely.
845768
Reliance Petroleum (RPL) will go production only in Q1, 2008. Till then, you won't find much rise in share price. Its a long term bet you should make. Once RPL goes live, I am sure you are going to make huge profit. I suggest 'hold on' for another ~15 months.
820638
I say bring it on. And, after the investigations have concluded you will hear that they find no wrongdoing. I know you libs and your conspiracies have it all figured out, but oil companies do not make but 8 or 9% profit on gasoline. Your answer for everything is more government control. It's supply and demand, THAT is what drives prices and we are in competition with China since we are the two countries who consume most of the oil in the world. Oh, one more thing, It's not George W. Bush's fault either!\n\nExcellent post! It's nice to know there are like minded people out there.
457866
The price of gas is going up due to the increase in price of oil (from which gas is refined) in the world markets.\n\nIt is not a question of supply and demand. There is as much oil being produced and consumed last week as this week. It is just that the stock and commodity markets (mainly in New York) control prices and push the prices up for their profit.\n\nThese commodity market types rely on politicians like George W and Cheney to use violent language. They will then jump on the bandwagon by bidding prices higher.
576765
The gas prices can be helped if the pricks at exxon and all the other fuel manufacture's would lower the price.  They only reported a 50% increase in profit last year.  Yea I say they could do something about it!!!1
246691
It is supply side economics it has never worked but the conservative agenda is to force it on us. If you have a pile of boxes and you want to move them if you pick up the top box all you move is the top box if you lift from the bottom all the boxes move up, including the top box. Their policy on oil is a bit suspect to, with the higher prices for fuel it will raise the price of everything to cover the cost of transporting the commodity's from factory to store.
517644
I don't want to create a conspiracy theory here - that the gas companies haven't built refineries, so that the supply has remained steady whereas demand skyrocketed, driving up the price...as the companies have seen quarterly profits that are unheard of.  I won't try and say that this was a carefully constructed plot on their behalf, ahem.  Well, ok, I don't think it is but I do think that they've been cheap and that their current plans to expand existing refineries won't solve our problems.\n\nDemand for energy will continue to grow (disproportionately here in the U.S...) and I really believe STRONGLY in seeking alternative sources of energy so that we can not only reduce costs for Americans (costs for living...crude oil costs affect EVERYTHING...prodution, shipping...driving up prices...costs to commute, etc.) but will reduce our dependence on foreign oil - doesn't get much better than THAT!!
1072226
Yes - the oil companies are gouging - look at the record profits\n\nThe best way to deal with it is by switching to other fuels and reducing our use\n\nPrice is all supply and demand - If the demand is reduced the price will drop\n\nI changed my habits to drop half my mileage driven in a week and am still getting everything done - just fewer trips\n\nall of us together would make a major difference
434511
This is just another urban legend floating around.\n\nBoycotting Exxon isn't going to work to bring down prices.  If everyone stopped buying from Exxon and used the other providers, then the other providers would run out of gas pretty quickly due to supply and demand chain effects.  What would happen is that they would buy their gas from Exxon and overall all prices would go up, not down.\n\nFull mythbuster at Snopes.\n\nhttp://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp\n\nTo lower gas prices, you have to lower demand, which includes things like carpooling, public transportation, alternative sources of energy, and better milage vehicles.
329145
ALL companies want to maximize profit.  That is the purpose of business.  You can set prices near zero and have an extremely large market of customers or you can set prices ridiculously high and have just a couple of customers (if any).\n\nYou don't want to set prices too low because there is a cost of doing business with each of those zillions of customers.  The lower your price, the higher percentage of each sale gets eaten up just dealing with the customers.  Unless you have an unlimited supply, you also face shortages if your price is too low.  The populace realizes it's a great deal and buys it all up, and you simply run out of product.  This, too, is a drain on your profits.  Prices should be high enough so you minimize your inventory storage, BUT you should NEVER run out.  That means your price is too low and you're losing profits.\n\nIf you set your price too high, only a few people can afford your product and they might not even want it.  If you do make a sale, your cost of dealing with the customer is very low compared to your price, but you might have a huge, expensive warehouse full of stock, or you have 7.5 hours a day that you wanted to have been providing services, or you have huge supplies of oil under the ground which will never be sold.  Because of this, you can't set prices TOO high or you also lose potential profit.\n\nThe big challenge to any company is to find the best price to sell in order to balance all of those factors and maximize profit.  Nobody is likely to get it perfect, but that's the big game in business.  Employees have the very same mindset when it comes to balancing home life with hours worked with wages per hour.\n\nYou wondered what lawmakers are doing.  Here are a few things they are doing.  Some of it increases oil company profits, and some increases government profits.  They all increase the price.\n\n1. They enact environmental legislation to make it impossible or prohibitively expensive to drill or refine oil.  This limits the supply and reduces potential competition from would-be new oil producers.\n\nThe current oil company profits look huge because the profits are concentrated among the few companies in the world.  If fair competition were allowed, the profits would be distributed among more companes and wouldn't look so tremendous, plus the overall profits would not be quite so high because competition tends to push prices down.\n\n2. They tax the heck out of gasoline, directly pushing the price up.  If oil were more elastic, this would reduce the demand and push crude oil prices down, but since it is so "essential" it ends up reducing the demand for other products.\n\n3. They prohibit the purchase of oil from certain countries.\n\n4. They hold huge reserves of oil, removing it from the market supply.\n\n5. Instead of selling federally-owned land to the highest bidder, they TAKE (to put it nicely) oil from wells in the Gulf of Mexico to fill the reserves.  This is to cover "royalties" for drilling on federally-owned land.  When the reserves are full, they charge royalties which increase the cost and price of domestic oil.\n\n6. They build roads and enact legislation making it illegal to drive most alternative types of vehicles on the roads.\n\nI'm sure they are doing more things to increase the price of oil, but that's what I can think of at the moment. :)
378056
They'll just keep putting the prices up because they know that companies and individuals have no option but to pay.  It's what's heppened here in the UK where gas is now more than $7.50 a gallon and demand is still rising.\n\nThere won't be fuel rationing unless there's an actual shortage of fuel and that doesn't seem likely.\n\nI can only speak for the UK when I say that there has been fuel rationing - during the war and during the oil crisis of the early 1970's.
78960
they are going up here too, I think the oil companies noticed that when it was at it's highest a couple of months ago, people were still buying. They know what "the market will bear" and are just trying to line their pockets more at our expense. There is no indication that supply is lowering or that demand is raising. So what exactly is the reason? Here it was 1.85 1st of January now it ie 2.28 and rising steadily.\n\nhow high are we going to let it go up?
581781
There is NOT a supply shortage. Even OPEC and Saudi Arabia are saying there's no shortage. They are saying the gas prices should not be anywhere near as high as they are. What's raising the cost is that oil companies are gouging everyone because they basically have a collective monopoly, even though they're supposed to be in competition with each other. That's why oil companies keep scoring record profits each year while average Americans are getting poorer.
256226
This is just my opinion but for example, the big oil companies have gained record breaking profits in the first quarter of this year.  As an effect, oil prices have gone up dramatically.....)(
377598
Believe me you don't want the federal price controls back on gasoline. Something makes me sure you're not old enough to remember what happened in 1973, but that aside, it is egregious for a company to compensate any executive like that. Those earning could be retained and probably doubled in a matter of five years on simple investments, much less research, development and exploration. How about infrastructure improvements like new refineries and pipelines?\n\nThis madness in U.S. and U.K. corporate culture with the salaries and bonuses is going to implode just like the nonsense with the stock market did 5 years ago. Investors beware! Can anyone say Dick Grasso?