Breaking: U.S. to tap Strategic Pete Reserve (CNBC) will gas go down ???

[cthrumatrix]

Energy Secy Bodman: U.S. to tap Strategic Pete Reserve, CNBC By Michael Baron

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the U.S. plans to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve during an interview broadcast Wednesday on CNBC. Bodman said an announcement about the specifics of the decision, which follows the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, would come later in the day.


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/pulseone.asp?guid={7F4C94A5-3193-4AA7-9B12-1D1B76E7911C}&siteid=mktw

I had heard that oil companies "requested" this move.

Seems like a good move at the right time.

[fasttense]

1. If brush does it you can bet the oil companies

are making tons of money off it.

[all.of.me]

2. that's my question, too - will prices go down?!

[Deja Q]

17. Will I spend another penny on anything non-essential?

Nope.

[all.of.me]

23. i'm at that point

i lead a very simple life, and i can only cut back so far, so this is getting ridiculous. i am also worried about the price of propane and firewood. i'm thinking we won't be able to afford to just live!

[ScreamingMeemie]

19. A few days ago, the talking heads were saying it would affect gas

prices by about 10 cents a gallon.

[all.of.me]

24. so my other question is...

did the hurricane create this increase, or is this from a barrel increase a couple weeks ago? i know it often takes a couple weeks for a barrel increase to effect prices, so if that's the case, then are we screwed again a couple weeks from now? i guess i am just starting to panic.

[Spinzonner]

3. Over Exxon's dead body

They will develop refinery problems and other 'issues' that will 'necessitate' keeping the price of gasoline and other refined fuels at a high level.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. It Will Probably Stabilize Prices...

It's more of a psycological salve when you factor in

-how much oil we comsume

-how much oil we import

and

-how much oil is in the reserve and can be released quickly

[Junkdrawer]

8. Just trying to keep the oil futures speculators guessing... n/t

[etherealtruth]

15. If it is a problem of capacity to refine the crude ...

... What purpose does releasing more crude oil (with limited capacity to refine into gasoline)serve.

Yes it's a symbolic gesture ... a very hollow and meaningless gesture, resulting in no greater availability of gas ... no break in gas prices.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/15/AR2005061502252.html

Edit: to add link

[cthrumatrix]

5. remember "our govt" overaw a reduction of US refineries of 50% when they

approved mergers of chevron/texaco , exxon/mobil....


we had twice as many refineries in the 80's

[HereSince1628]

6. Do you suppose that big petro will push to suspend regulations

that require designer blend gasolines for the different regions of the country?

I mean as Condi says every crisis presents an opportunity.

When do they normally do the switch from summer to winter blends?

[whistle]

7. No, but oil profits will rise dramatically since they will have.....

....access to cheaper crude (reserves have inventories going back to when crude was under $30.00 per barrel) Maybe Bush is actually giving the oil away, letting tax payers absorb the cost. By law, the government can't make a profit on anything it sells.

[leftofthedial]

9. hell no!

the price of gasoline will never go down again.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. It Will Go Down A Bit...

but $2.00 a gallon gas belongs to antiquity and I'm not convinced it's a bad thing....


I think we should let the market work to discourage "overconsumption" while coming up with alternative sources of energy. The pain of high gas prices could be mitigated by giving tax breaks to the working poor to offest the rise in energy prices....


The last thing you want is cheap gas in an era of scarcity...

[durablend]

18. What alternative energy?!?

All this extra money is going into oil companies pockets. You're NOT going to see any real effort into finding alternate energy until the oil men who are desperately trying to block it are the hell out.

As for giving tax breaks to the poor, (laughs)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. We Import Over Fifty Percent Of Our Oil...

Oil is sold on the world market and its price is going up because demand excedes supply...

Econonomists don't agree on much but they all agree the laws of supply and demand are inexorable....


The greatest incentive to develop alternative sources of energy is to make the continued reliance on fossil fuels untenable...


The challenge is to make this transition as painless as possible to the most vulnerable...

As to "tax cuts" to mitigate the pain being a joke it's only a joke because this administration is myopic..

[KharmaTrain]

10. It's Not The Reserve, It's The Refineries

What good is $20 a barrel oil gonna be if it can't be made into gasoline or fuel oil since so many major refineries in that area will be off line for months or years.

Look for the oil companies now to go running to Congress ASAP, like the airlines, and beg for "government assistance" in the rebuilding (building) of refineries, oil rigs, kids dental work and so on. It'll be strike while the iron is hot...dressed up by the Repugnicans as "doing something"...Democrats will be slammed for "not having a plan" and $2.50 to $3 a gallon gas will be the norm.

My concern is not the price, but the supply. With all this oil capacity...from the wells in the Gulf to the supertanker loading docks to the refineries to the pipelines (all that need electricity that early estimates say won't be back on for at least a month or longer) will have on the overall supply of gasoline and fuel oil across the nation.

[cthrumatrix]

11. how about "just re-open" the refineries that oil companies CLOSED over

the last 2 decades...with govt approval

[KharmaTrain]

14. If They're Still Around

I know a large one that was closed near Romeoville, Illinois is now a housing development (imagine living on that toxic soup).

Be assured, if the oil companies do anything, it'll be with tons of tax breaks and they'll be telling this regime what to do, not the other way around. meeester boosh's silence speaks volumes.

[ET Awful]

12. It won't have any effect on prices.

Prices are already overinflated to allow for a much larger profit margin than ever before, at least for the oil companies, local smalltime service stations don't see a lot of that profit.

You know there's a big problem when oil company profits are at an all time high and so are pump prices. That means they have inflated their wholesale pricing at a much greater pace than their cost has increased.

It's pure greed and opening the reserves won't eliminate that.

[spinbaby]

16. You are too funny!

They tapped the reserves to help the REFINERIES, silly, not to help us.

[Ganja Ninja]

20. It's all oil all the time with these guys.

People are drowning like rats in their attics and numbnutts needs to come up with a plan 3 days ago. This is all well and good but it shouldn't be the first order of business to address oil shortages. If we really want to have an impact on the price of gas we need to bring back the 55 mph speed limit right now by emergency order. We should also ask businesses to institute a voluntary 4 day work week and go to an odd-even gas rationing program where people can only gas up every other day.

[durablend]

22. With somebody else in office

All this might make sense, but the way it is now, (laughs)

[meg]

25. They want to have more to sell at >$3.00 a gallon

Now that prices are this high, the oil companies need more so that they can sell a larger volumn of gas at these prices.