Price of fuel went up again in my area

Dino saur is spot on. OPEC tried to put our oil drillers out of business by temporarily taking losses themselves for the long term gain. Many countries such as Russia cannot survive long term without sustainable oil prices. That’s all been fixed now and they will thrive and well bow down to survive.

 

I know you're invested in your narrative, but it's strikingly naive.

US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge

"Approvals for companies to drill for oil and gas on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president, underscoring President Joe Biden’s reluctance to more forcefully curb petroleum production in the face of industry and Republican resistance."
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Diesel prices were higher (on average) than now between 2011 and 2014, when they started to drop, hitting the low point towards the end of 2016, where they more or less stayed until fall of 2017, when diesel started to rise through the end of 2018 where prices plateau through 2019. 2019 saw a significant pull back in domestic oil consumption, particularly in manufacturing. Prices cratered in 2020 for obvious reasons before climbing back up to 2018 levels.

Articles like this one from Forbes like to lay the rising energy costs on "a particular person".
Biden Caught Flatfooted By Skyrocketing Oil Prices

It sounds reasonable until you look at who the author is :

Dan Eberhart: I am CEO of Canary, one of the largest privately-owned oilfield services companies in the United States.
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Your narrative is one being pushed by people who have a vested interest in being given a free hand. Most of these energy price boogy man stories sound similar to the truck driver shortage stories being skilled by the ATA.

 

So this is one I can assist with as I have nearly 30 years commodity’s experience. I move product by truck (why I am here, rail, pipe and vessels.

So it is a multiple issue situation not one by itself.

1.demand is of course up.
2 the us shale production has failed in many ways. Largely by the decline rates. If I go and frac an oil well today it’s production will drop by 35% a year through year 7. The biggest problem is I have to contract for peak supply using take or pay commitments. I also have to build a gathering system big enough for peak levels. This causes it to be a massive investment. The banks know this and know the decline rates. So yes there is b/e on drilling but the rest is not included in that.
3. Many investors shareholders and financiers are demanding stiffer esg on all wells so no more flairing the Natty that comes off the oil well again more costs.
4. due to the decarbonization pressure that many of the companies are under the marginal refineries are not operating. In fact the newest one has been converted to clean diesel and does not process oil at all any longer.
5. Did I mention demand? Well worldwide demand is up and it is mainly in certain products diesel being one of them.
6. before you start saying keystone this that or the other frankly that was only to bring the Canadian crude to the Gulf Coast for export canceling that is actually a positive for US refining at non gulf coast locations. For the record on political sides I think all of them are dumb. My main comment would be those are the 2 best we have. Okay then.
7 China kneecapped the private “teapot” refineries and like the property Ponzi scheme that is being talked about the companies are going kaboom overnight.
8.while we are on China they told the state owned companies to secure supplies at any cost.
9. If you look at our energy prices vs the rest of the world we have been spoiled for many years. Ask any of the foreign folks.
10 back to the refineries. With the explosion in philly a couple years ago we took out a major supply source for the NE it won’t come back.
11 the freeze we saw in February damaged a number of refineries on the gulf coast. Prices still need to move up to justify repairs. You can’t just shut down and restart them like the trucks. Just as in everything getting the parts is turning into a nightmare.
12 the euro situation is fairly dire they need ours or anyone’s energy to survive again please let’s not get political but they have chosen to tax carbon and are going through the pains of decarbonization.
13. if you look at gasoline/diesel on an inflation adjusted basis it is cheap. Compared to many other things.
14. Again not politics but we as a country choose to live life as everything is disposable having traveled the world and lived worldwide we are extremely wasteful. An example that I would use is the long nose vs aero trucks. Do the aero trucks use less fuel? Hard to dispute it but by golly the long noses sure are pretty. If we were in Europe or Asia it would not be a choice as fuel is so much more there. Please don’t take as a criticism just stating what I can to help visualize it. My fleet of 10 trucks is a mix we see approximately a 20% improvement on the Aeros but it is not apples to apples as they are used for different purposes.
15. The market is not set by opec the president or anyone. It is set by the end user. If there is demand the market will find it and sell to the highest payer. As it prices out demand it will cause prices to stabilize or drop but the elasticity of demand is not instant. An example propane right now is 150 plus at the facilities in Texas with out any transport taxes or profit. Electricity in Texas is 8/9c a kWh. So propane will be 4 bucks plus at retail level. So if you use 1000 gallons of propane it will be 4000 bucks. Let’s say electric is 1000kwh a month (for the record maybe way off no idea just using it for the discussion) that is 80-90 a month. So maybe 500 for the winter. What is the cost to convert (again no idea but it shows you how the price can swing things significantly) so based on this comparison it would save 3500 a year. Even if it costs 10000 to convert in 3 years you are ahead. Propane in this case is the marginal supply. The end user is us and we can decide to switch.
Anyhow I will leave it at this I appreciate if you have gotten this far on my post but I wanted to try to help. Over the years I have appreciated the info I have gotten here and felt obligated to try to clarify some things. I welcome comments but please not politics as I don’t care.

 

Opec didn't try to put us out of business.

Suadi had tons of oil already on the way to the world. When the world shut down.
Storages were already full. Nobody had any place to put what was coming. Thus. The $-37.

Ships actually sat around for a week. Charging $50,000 a day storage fee.

Saudi couldn't shut down. They don't have the capability. They only had the capability to slow production.

If the tiny brain actually paid attention to world problems.

 

I paid $1.85 a gallon for gasoline in 2019… I have the receipts to prove it

 

Never saw prices like this between 2017 and 2020…so high!!

 

Prices were very low before the scamdemic came about..I paid $1.85 a gallon for gasoline in 2019 as we all know that’s before the scamdemic… The rising prices right now are direct relation to a reckless clown and his cohorts.

 

Then you paid $1/gallon less than the national average.
U.S. No 2 Diesel Retail Prices (Dollars per Gallon)

 

Looks like I got you all excited with a fake article. lol you guys will believe anything that agrees with you.
U.S. crude oil production fell by 8% in 2020, the largest annual decrease on record - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)