We subsidize the oil companies and...

[SHRED]

...they export overseas.

And people still think it is "our" oil. If we could just "produce more".

It's a CON game.




In a first, gas and other fuels are top U.S. export

~SNIP~

There's at least one domestic downside to America's growing role as a fuel exporter. Experts say the trend helps explain why U.S. motorists are paying more for gasoline. The more fuel that's sent overseas, the less of a supply cushion there is at home.

Gasoline supplies are being exported to the highest bidder, says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. "It's a world market," he says.

Refining companies won't say how much they make by selling fuel overseas. But analysts say those sales are likely generating higher profits per gallon than they would have generated in the U.S. Otherwise, they wouldn't occur.

[url]http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-12-31/united-states-export/52298812/1[/url]

Oil boomlet sweeps U.S. as exports and production rise

~SNIP~

Looking at your heating bills or gas prices, you may find it surprising that the United States is enjoying a mini oil boom. It's producing more crude oil and, for the first time in decades, has become a net exporter of petroleum products such as jet fuel, heating oil and gasoline.

[url]http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-12-16/us-oil-boom/52053236/1[/url]

What's to blame for gas price spike?

"Right now, we're at an 11-month high," said Indianapolis commodities broker Lannie Cohen, with Capitol Commodity Services, referring to the price of crude oil. "It's really a supply-based rally. Everybody's worried about future supplies."

But back at the pump, Scott Imus, who heads the Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, which represents some 3,000 gas stations and convenience stores statewide, disagrees with Cohen’s assessment.

"Supply is not the problem,” he said. “Demand is off. If you look year-to-date, it's down 5 to 7 percent in terms of demand. Demand is not the issue. The issue is fears of the unknown and what's going to happen in the Middle East."

Those fears, he said, are prompting speculators to bid the price up, pushing the price you pay at the pump away from simple supply and demand.

[url]http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/indiana/whats-to-blame-for-gas-price-spike[/url]

[handmade34]

1. and in the context of Keystone XL Pipeline...

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/spread-the-word/key-facts-keystone-xl/

"Energy Security: Tar Sand will not Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil"

"Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets.
•Keystone XL is an export pipeline. According to presentations to investors, Gulf Coast refiners plan to refine the cheap Canadian crude supplied by the pipeline into diesel and other products for export to Europe and Latin America. Proceeds from these exports are earned tax-free. Much of the fuel refined from the pipeline’s heavy crude oil will never reach U.S. drivers’ tanks.
•Reducing demand for oil is the best way to improve our energy security. U.S. demand for oil has been declining since 2007. New fuel-efficiency standards mean that this trend will continue once the economy gets back on track. In fact, the Energy Deptartment report on KeystoneXL found that decreasing demand through fuel efficiency is the only way to reduce mid-east oil imports with or without the pipeline..."

...sane people see the need to talk alternative energies and changing the way we use and abuse energy sources!

[Old and In the Way]

3. We get the socialized environmental risk...they get the profits.

And the Republicans get Big Oil's political investment.

[handmade34]

4. one of the most important

(and the most sad) ways we subsidize big oil is by not making them responsible for external costs... that is a BIG deal!!

[Old and In the Way]

5. We should send Big Oil a bill every year for about 1/3 of the Defense Budget.

Let them try to pass it on to the consumer. We'll see how the consumer reacts when they have the cost of oil fully priced into a gallon of gas. You know, free market choices that the Republicans love to talk about so much. Suddenly, electric vehicles might make a whole lot of sense.

[gratuitous]

17. You'd think that little factoid would get mentioned in the popular media

When Rmoney bloviates about building the XL pipeline, and anybody in the way better be forewarned. Not one drop of petroleum anticipated to flow through our country has to be sold in our country. Just like what comes out of the Alaska pipeline doesn't reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. That petroleum is sent out on the free market in search of the best price for the greater enrichment of ExxonMobil's bottom line.

You'd think the popular media might mention this. I wonder why they don't?

[Old and In the Way]

2. They don't call themselve's CONservatives for nothing.

"Drill, baby, drill" Yeah, right. They are going to risk their money trying to find cheap sweet crude oil to extract here when they can send the tankers to the ME and have Uncle Sam pick up the tab for providing security. Maybe Sarah Palin can explain it to us....

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. I'm sorry, but this just seems like basic economic ignorance

first, those exports? Are of oil imported from outside the US (Mexico, Canada, and lots of other places), refined in the US, and then re-exported because of a lack of refinery capacity, or because it's simply easier to refine on the Gulf Coast and then ship to Brazil or wherever. The US produces 5.5 million barrels of oil a day and uses a bit less than 18 million. And quite honestly? Looking at the question of supply and demand in a narrow regional manner, and thinking that US demand matters in the big picture of global oil demand (which is at record levels), is just nonsensical. Oil is internationally traded; global demand determines the world market price, and if US demand is down...it's not in China, the Chinese will be more than happy to buy any fuel that the US, or Europe, aren't using.

[Vincardog]

7. Then at least the US should be TAXING the oil as it "flows thru"

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. The refiners are already taxed.

The oil isn't consumed in the US; nor is the gasoline refined from it and then re-exported. So I'm afraid that's just not really a good idea.

[Vincardog]

9. So in your mind it is good that the only thing we get out of the deal is the Environmental

Degridation?

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Oil's going to be refined anyway, like it or not

and honestly I don't really see why you have a problem with gasoline that there's no demand for in the US being exported where there is demand for it; that's how a global economy works, it's very simple. You couldn't keep it in the US to lower the price at the pump of gasoline because taking however many million barrels a day it is effectively out of the market is only going to drive the world market price for oil UP because the demand hasn't gone away and now Brazil and China and whoever else need to find a replacement supply.

[Vincardog]

11. The toxic sludge that is going to come out of Canada spells the end of a livable world environment.

It would require VAST degradation of Canada's water and land to produce and more to refine (and that is why they can not build a refinery for it in Canada.).
It will RAISE the price of gas in middle America because it is currently refined and sold in the US.
If it were sent down to the Koch brothers refinery in Houston for export it would
DECREASE the amount of gas we have available and cost jobs.
The only thing we would get out of the deal is an increase in gas prices
along with an associated increase in the disease, death and destruction wrought by big oil.
It is very simple Why should we put our AIR water and land at risk to subsides the Chinese demand for oil?
What do we get out of it? Higher prices less work and all the risk.

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. It won't decrease the amount available, for a start

there's as much in the market as the market demands; refined gasoline is a "just in time delivery" product; it's not stockpiled. There's as much being used as being demanded, keeping it in the US is only going to RAISE the price because it's taking however much out of the global market. And the Canadian tar sands oil resource is very sadly probably going to be explouted, because people are stupid; if the US doesn't buy the oil, China will. Tar sands oil is only being produced because all the oil that's easy to find has been found, and it's only economical to produce in a world of high oil prices; the break-even point for tar sands oil is $75 a barrel, which means they need about $80 a barrel for it to be profitable.

[Vincardog]

13. I beg to differ. If the oil that is now refined and sold in the USA is exported to China it

decreases the amount available and increases the price here.
You ignore the real questions I ask to post neo-liberal crap.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. It doesn't decrease the amount available.

Because it's a GLOBAL market, not a regional one. Distorting the local market by NOT exporting fuel there's no US demand for when there IS demand for it outside the US is only going to have the effect of raising the price of oil on world markets. Because now China and whoever have to compete for the oil you've taken out of the market. The US is still a net oil importer. Total US imports are ten million barrels a day. If the US has to compete suddenly for those ten million barrels, or however much? The price will go UP, and not down. This is very basic economics; it is not "neo-liberal crap".

[Vincardog]

15. The filthy oil sand is not on the world market now. The pipeline's purpose is to bring it to the

world market. Answer the question "Why should we suffer all the harm and risk without getting any of the profits?"
If you can't answer that I don't want to hear any more of your neo-liberal crap.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. Sure it is

the price is determined by the prevailing world market price. 99% of Canada's exports are to the US, but some percentage of that is refined and re-exported as fuel. It's clearly on the world market. And you know, the fact that it's profitable to exploit tar sands is a result of the fact that we're at peak oil; all the easy to drill and refine oil has been gotten, if it hadn't been there'd be no margin in tar sands.