Letter to the Editor
Gas prices
Published Monday, July 28, 2008
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To the editor:
The national average price of a gallon of gasoline is reported below $4 a gallon on this day.
Why, when we have a refinery polluting our neighborhoods, are we paying more than 50 cents above the national average!
Community Discussion
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From what I've heard, it is because Fairbanks doesn't have enough demand to negotiate better prices, it is some type of "burden" or "inconvenience" to distributors because of our population size. I'm simplifying the point, but I think you get the idea, ...
...kind of puts a hole in the theory of conservation, at least on the local level. We use less, it becomes even more of a burden, therefore, prices should up and stay up. Again, I'm simplifying, ...
Someone posted a really good explanation of the correlations between the prices crude oil is trading at and gas prices. Seeing prices drop now would be great, but I also understand that the oil that is being refined today was purchased a while ago at potentially a higher price.
I expect that as long as oil doesn't shoot up again that Alaska's prices will drop in a couple of weeks.
I was in Minneapolis 2 weeks ago and unleaded was 3.84 per gallon and Diesel 4.40. I can not believe that it has something to do with volume.
Sounds like some have bought in and are spouting big oil excuses for the price of gas. My understanding, when the refinery was being located in our backyard, was that we would not have to pay these high (actually highest in the nation, even over Hawaii who has to have all their gas shipped in) prices. Promises, promises.
Looks like there's plenty of room for competition..
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/bill...
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http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/bill...
The refinery in North Pole which supplies gasoline to local residents has to fuel it's own operation with the crude oil from the pipeline. Refineries in the lower 48 are able to use natural gas which is cheaper than crude oil. Hence, the extra operating expense is passed on to us, the consumer.
The only reason we have not seen our gas prices drop is because it is tourist season. You won't see them drop significantly until after September 15th.
At what point will the future traders come back in and begin this price rising game again. They said all along they would sell out when it went to $145 a barrel. How low do you think they will let it go, $100 a barrel before the game begins again.
The national price is at $3.91 a gallon for gas. The US actually reduced consumption by 2.3% in a year. The car manufactures have begun the process of changing over to lower consumption vehicles. One car manufacture is no longer leasing due to the fact that at the end of the leases SUV's and trucks can only be sold at a loss. Hopefully Americans will not be lulled into a false sense of security over gas and oil prices and return back to old habits.
They say that the gas prices should be going down this week based on the barrel price. How come everywhere else the price has dropped to below $4 a gallon but not here. We used to remain fairly close to the national average. When the barrel price goes up the gas stations raise the price almost immediately, when the price of the barrel goes down it doesn't drop for weeks. Now we are getting screwed by the local companies to. Come on people give us all a break.
here in redding ca some stores are selling gas for under 4 bux. too bad i cant bring a barrel of that back home with me. :)
The national average has dropped 16 cents from the all-time high of $4.11 on July 17th. It is down to $3.35 in parts of the mid-west, www.oklahomacitygasprices.com. Yet prices in Fairbanks are unchanged. Don't forget that Alaska has 13 cents LESS state tax than the US average. This puts us at 67 cents more than the US average and $1.24 more than parts of the mid-west!
Fairbanks prices have never been this much higher than US prices since we have had a local refinery!
The reason for the huge price discrepancy is that the refineries are making up for losses on long-term jet fuel contracts by increasing the margins on wholesale purchases. Jet fuel is 3 cents more in Fairbanks than in Seattle, while gasoline and heating oil are 50 cents more. This would be like GVEA giving electricity to Ft. Knox for 5 cents and selling it to us for 25 cents.
If you want someone to talk to about this here are the numbers to the managers responsible:
Fred Meyer Fuel - Cliff Haldwell 1.800.858.9202 ext.3734
Holiday Stores - Bob Nye 1.800.745.7411 ext. 8737
Sourdough/Petrostar - Mark John 907.339.6627
Flint Hills - Jeff Cook 907.488.5104
"The refinery in North Pole which supplies gasoline to local residents has to fuel it's own operation with the crude oil from the pipeline."
Then why are we still paying the highest prices around??? I"m a local resident and havent been told where I can get cheaper gas. Did they forget about me?
My gasoline is $6.46 a gallon. Heating fuel is $6.23 a gallon. It will not go down with the next in-coming barge. Our heating fuel will go to over $8.00 gallon as well as gasoline.
My heating fuel for the winter will be over $9,000.00 plus a 6% sales tax. Will the PFD and the talked about
$1200.00 'resource rebate' cover that?
I sure wish I was paying what Fairbanks is paying for gasoline and heating fuel.
Villages around me are already at $8.00 or more a gallon for heating fuel and gasoline. How are they going to handle that?
We have over 700,000 barrels of oil going outside every day. Why can't our legislators and administration give us our Royalty Oil at $2.00 a gallon for all fuels?
Villages around me are already paying $8.00 or more for heating fuel and gasoline. How are they going to handle that? We need our Royalty Oil delivered to all of us at $2.00 a gallon now!
I think competition is much more effective than complaining about the high cost of gasoline.
Selective hearing-loss is a universal trait amongst billionaires.
[I occasionally encounter old pals who are now billionaires, and I often resort to old high-school tricks to get them to listen... like snatch their eyglasses off their nose and make them get on all-fours and bark like a dog to get them back]
If you are hungry enough for gasoline you'll figure out a new way to make your own. That's what the Koch Bros. will tell you over a drink. Daddy Koch invented a new refinery process in the 1920's. Then he took his invention to Russia in the early '30's. Getting out of Stalin's path might have been his greatest achievement.
Getting out of Bush/Cheney's way might yet be our greatest achievement.
Hint: Every big refinery started out as a little one, not much more complicated than a moonshine still...
...and there's still a billion new undiscovered ways to make moonshine.
Fully vaporized ethanol blended with Brown's Gas is one of Johnathan Goodwin's favorite tricks.
Don't be stuck on stupid trying to make your refinery exactly duplicate standardized-gasoline[scam]
You'll be much more free if you convert to a multifuel capable engine.
http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directo....
Better to invent a nano-nano fuelcell that directly converts dirty-gases to electricity.
In the late 90s, I did extensive research into fuel cells. At that time, a subsidiary of GE, (Plug Power), was completely powering a house with a fuel cell unit the size of a standard house air-conditioner. World-wide, there were several hundred research facilities devoted to making fuel cells a viable option for home power supplies. GE actually had an inquiry page on their website asking for distributors and suppliers so they could go ahead with production. Around 2001, for some reason, it was announced that they were backing off their plans in order to do further research...and I haven't heard anything more since.
Plug Power homepage:
http://www.plugpower.com/technology/over...
Demonstration:
http://www.plugpower.com/technology/work...
At the time, the GE fuel cell, (to produce 7 k of power), used no moving parts, required only yearly filter maintenance, and had an estimated 15 year life before major overhaul; efficiency was estimated to be much higher than traditional grid-based producers. They were as quiet as a refrigerator, and the emissions/byproducts of the unit were only heat and water...they could be installed in a basement.
Makes me wonder just what the problem was...I'm guessing traditional power suppliers and huge amounts of pressure rather than a problem with the fuel cells themselves...
Anyone have any recent news on this?
Sorry that post was so off-topic, however, it does bring up the interesting question: "Just how much do we really know about the behind-the-scenes workings of the world energy markets?"
Years ago everyone was complaining about gas price being higher in Fairbanks then Anchorage when we had the refinery. A spokes person for Mapco said "It's a matter of economics". Meaning, they get the highest price that they can get. This same discussion has been going on for many years, the answer is greed.
I agree with akusa. I hear so many reason's why but in the end it is all bullsh**. The price is high because they are greedy bottom line they can set the price at what they want who is gonna stop them nobody. I sent Palin an email and asked why we pay so much more for gas over a week ago i aint got no response sure she is busy but dont she have yes folks to give answers guess not. Has any of our great political leaders looked into this or did i miss that too. Hell no they aint looked into it cause they dont care they dont live in AK so they are already paying for way cheaper gas. Guess i will call this fred meyer fuel guy and see what kind of bs he tells me but first i will put on my boots cause im sure it will get deep.
Well Sherry--- That does seem to be the $6,400 question! We've been here 30 yrs. and as sure as the sun doesn't set in the summer that has been the 2nd most asked question ( right behind" When do the Dividends come out?). And NO ONE will offer the true answer.
Maybe if we had a "Drive up" day out there.
Just have 1-2 days when every one got in their cars and formed a snaky line to the refinery gate with signs that asked for gas.
NAAH* But something to gnaw on!
Cut from another post I made:
The reason that the price of gasoline doesn't lower is because it's not a retail product--the price is based on the futures market, just like crude and heating oil. The "cost" of a barrel of oil is not the price that "somebody" pays for a barrel of oil as it comes out of a pipe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_exc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Me...
(snip)
$3.51 today in Ohio!
Alaska does not deal in the futures market. Flint Hills buys royalty crude from the state and sells it the the distributors who deliver it to Williams, Fred Meyer, Safeway, etc. This is a closed market and futures do not play any role whatsoever. It would be kind of hard to ship crude backwards through the pipeline would it not?
Flint Hills buys their crude at the West Coast price for that day minus the shipping costs. We should see an immediate price reduction when crude drops, just like we see an immediate increase when the price goes up.
I too have written to Palin about this & a few other things that seem like total BS* to me. As far as her website said she would respond to every question. Well, I've asked her 2 or 3 and have not gotten an answer from her or anyone else in her office for that matter.
I actually had better dealings with Coghill's office - although he never talked to me, at least one of his office assistants took the time.
Apparantly our local representatives are getting paid so much that they don't really give a crap how much they pay for property tax or gas. Which must make them think that the people that vote them in don't care either.
We need to speak up and let our representatives know that we are not appreciating the local price gouging. Especially when it is easy to compare and see that we are paying WAY more than we should be! They are there to represent us, and I just don't see them doing their jobs!
Well, here in Healy, Chevron strikes again! Gas prices nationally are going down and the Chevron in Healy (owned by Aramark??) just raised their prices from $5.62 a gallon to $5.69 a gallon! And as I have mentioned before, thank goodness for Keith's Tesoro as they are still at $4.99 a gallon. I refuse to support Chevron here locally in anyway and I know many of the locals who feel the same way. You can see that, with nobody at the gasoline pumps at Chevron and all the activity at Keith's! Thank you, Keith's!!!!
*Thanks for the information Fairbanksgas! Good to know!
*andora, I honestly feel for you! I wish you luck as I couldn't afford that!
*AKUS and TONY08, greed is exactly it!
I know it doesn't matter what we do, short of NOT USING GAS, because the price will continue to soar. I have to think that it will stop somewhere - the question is, where?
That having been said, Tony08, perhaps your time would be better spent brushing up on 5th grade English skills.
Plus Teklanika, Keith's has yummy pie.
Really? Flint Hills is headquartered in North Pole?
Just because they've got a branch location in North Pole does not mean that they don't deal in futures.
What makes us, Alaska, so special that we think ourselves exempt from
Now, I'm sure some of you will say "it's our crude!"
It's not "our" oil. Just as your landlord is not welcome to come sleep on your couch, Alaska no longer has "rights" to the oil. The rights to that oil is included in the leases......
But really, what's reality mean in the face of an emotional panic? A lot of you are worried about freezing to death this winter. I'm truly sorry about that. I know that some Fairbanks citizens won't make it through to see next spring. But I ask, why is that the responsibility of the government? If you don't have the personal fiscal responsibility to properly budget for the tools and resources to adequately heat your home, why should the state come in and treat you like a child?
I'm all for the state providing assistance where it's required.....but with the caveat that the state also then has control over the personal finances of the assisted. No more smoking. Stop drinking. No more fast-food. No more junk food. No DVD rentals....and so on.
ramble off.
akprincess72
"Plus Teklanika, Keith's has yummy pie".
Yes indeed!! I will always support such a community minded business in purchasing more than gasoline. The least I can do anyhow!!