Usatoday: "former Oil Exec: $5-a-gallon Gas On The Way"

[grampi]

There are folks that want $5-$8 per gallon prices in the USA . These "folks" are currently in office .

They can want in one hand, and crap in the other and see which fills first...this country can't survive on $5-$8 gas...ask any economist, it simply isn't possible...look at how bad the economy suffers when gas is $4 a gallon...

 

[grampi]

I saw a brand new crew cab four wheel drive Ford one ton pull into the parking lot at work today, and one guy get out. I work on a nuclear reservation that is 40 miles from the nearest bedroom community. The truck was black and spotless, will probably never go off road. He NEEDS the four wheel drive in case it snows. I live in a desert, we get 7 inches of moisture annually. Every mile he puts on that truck it depreciates, if you need one fine but it is not a commuter car, leave it home, preferably under cover and buy a Geo metro to pack you and your briefcase to work.

He's probably got one of those fake scrotums hanging from his trailer hitch too...

 

[grampi]

To be selfish, I hope that gas prices are still low in August. When gas prices are low the dealerships have trouble selling efficient cars and thus their prices drop

Smart people will make their small car purchase now while prices are low...the idiots with no foresight will buy the huge gas hogs now, then complain about high gas prices when the prices go back up (which they certainly will)...

 

[grampi]

I hope this happens, the transportation budget is empty and they keep having to use various short term tricks to keep it going, indexing the tax as a percentage instead of flat tiny dollar amount that doesn't reflect inflation is a needed solution.

P.S. I thought I would also throw in that North Carolina has the highest gas taxes of any place I have ever lived, and has the best quality roads of any place I have ever lived, and at just $0.375 per gallon, that's a price I willingly pay and can easily afford.

You hope we have $7 gas? Do want to stand in bread lines? $7 gas would put this country into a major depression...

 

[grampi]

Nope, never heard of it, sure we have bike lanes, but I also believe there are more cars on the road than ever. Almost 1 out of every 12 jobs relate to the auto industry (if you include parts stores, car washes etc) so I really don't really think they are coming for our cars. I own some classic cars and I have been hearing for the last 25 years (in magazines and car clubs) how they are "coming" to crush our classics due to EPA or road safety issues etc.
I just don't think that's realistic at this time, 100 years in the future? who knows, but for right now I just don't see it.

Vehicles are way too popular in this country for "the man" to ever get away with taking them away...the people just won't stand for it...if they want to change the way commerce flows in this country, they are going to have to "sell" the people on what they want to do..."the man" will never be able to FORCE people to give up their vehicles...

 

[RUCRAYZE]

Houston is by far the largest city in the US without zoning. That means there is no central business district, no real "bedroom communities" therefore EVERYONE commutes miles to work. Bus and light rail are political boondoggles that don't have any real application except to line the pockets of political insiders. Houston is also dead flat with a water table only eight to ten feed below ground level. For that reason there are no basements here. If you dig too far below grade, you install pumps to keep your cellar bailed out . . . so subways are out of the question. Ground level transit really messes with private surface transport, and elevated railways? Well, we had ONE about fifty years ago that ran about three blocks. No, it didn't work either.

So, we're stuck in this sprawling city of 600 square miles with tremendous need for private commuter transit. We're the largest city in the South, but we spend hours of every day sitting in traffic converting fossil fuels into ozone. Overlay this with Houston's being the hub of the international oil and petrochemical industry. We're the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the boom-bust cycle of oil prices. In the past two weeks three major oil service companies have laid off 9,000 workers with more to follow. That's the cost of cheap oil - there's no way to support exploration and production on sub-$60 oil. (Current price as of this writing for WTI is $46.16) All of this cheap gas is paving the way to a serious rebound as supplies dry up and motor gasoline becomes scarce.

In the offshore market, the big, deepwater rigs have slipped below 80% "utilization rate" that marks the beginning of rigs being stacked (mothballed) when they cease to be profitable. You'll never see much over 90% utilization because there are still a good number of floating junkpiles that are maintained in the inventory for tax purposes but couldn't drill a posthole. A tumble below 80% represents a significant retreat in drilling offshore. What may be more telling is that day-rates for the super rigs offshore has fallen below a half-million dollars per day - and that's about break-even for operation, maintenance, and debt service on one of these mammoth machines. What does all this market activity mean?

Market pundits - at least those looking several months into the future - are predicting an upswing in crude prices by the end of the summer. We've probably reached the bottom of the market for motor gasoline, and we can expect a slow climb out of the cellar over the next few months as we approach the summer driving season and production of more costly oxygenated fuels for the warm season.

Some "Chicken Littles" are talking about $5 gas by next Christmas, but realistically - barring any major war - $3.50/gal gas is well within range by October. The winter price decline should take over by then and hold prices at that level or below for the next 15 months or so. Long term? Well, inflation will take a large toll at that point, so another 10% rise isn't out of the question before we get to the "summer" pricing of '16.

It's always a shock to discover that whatever benefits the economy in terms of low energy prices, ultimately hurts the economy as energy resources dry up due to the market responding to overproduction and the collapse of exploration for new resources.

So enjoy the sub-$2 gas while we can . . . it's going to be a long and rough road - particularly if crude prices remain at these unusual lows for more than another few months and the energy sector layoffs spread. Yet another good reason for the Elio's appearance in the marketplace - just when it's needed.

thanks for your post

 

[Lil4X]

As an aside, thanks to an 80¢/gallon discount with my monthly "reward points" from Kroger, I paid 99¢ per gallon last night for 35 gallons of gas (filling up five five-gallon gas cans as backup). First time I've paid under a dollar a gallon in 15 years . . . of course it came at a cost: As well as the layoffs at oilfield service companies Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker-Hughes, Helmrich and Payne, one of the nation's largest drilling contractors has laid off 2,000 employees. There are no free lunches here, when gas prices go down, energy workers suffer. Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you.

 

[AriLea]

We skipped back here from a side-tracked discussion here..post#1913..

So today or yesterday OPEC has decided to limit production. It maybe true that OIL is in less demad, but we were already having hiked up prices which is the main reason we have inflation right now. So with this we may have inflatuion along with a recession.

So this is what was in play in the 1970's that stirred incredible interest in high-mleage vehicles, and ultimately my interest in the Autocycle.

If it matches what happened in the '70's, the hightened interest will remain in place very viserally for at least a year for each month that gas prices remain at a 'scary' level. But in the '70's OPEC did it, blatlanty just because they could, and were greedy about it, to include the US based Oil companies.

This time they likely are claiming other reasons, but we will see.

Anyway, the extra interest can only help all EV's including the Aptera, as well as helping any vehicle like the BEX.
See Aptera discussion on this here, at post #99...

 

[AriLea]

(old post from Jan 7th) Houston.... ....therefore EVERYONE commutes miles to work. Bus and light rail are political boondoggles .... water table only eight to ten feed below ground level.. . so subways are out of the question. Ground level transit really messes with private surface transport, and elevated railways? Well, we had ONE about fifty years ago that ran about three blocks. No, it didn't work either....

Seattle put in thier monorail starting at the 1964 World's Fair (my Wife's father had a lot to do with attracting that fair), and it works pretty well.

BUT, it does mess up the sky-line and people hate that. The rail and cars are cool enough, but street level feels like living in a dungeon. So it's biggest problem is just getting permission to build it in enough places to make it worth it. And it is sooo much cheaper than subway's. Busses are generally cheaper than subways too.

But buses also congests private transport as well. The only way that actually works, is if practically all of the people actually use the buses. And that will never happen in the USA. People will always choose private single driving until so congested that mass transit becomes easier for them.

THAT is the actual trick, making it easier for them. Well that and not killing off the livability factor.

So when it came time to expand mass transit? Seattle chose subways. They had to. Busses were becoming everyother vehicle on the roads. They just couldn't stuffmore busses into some places. (I did work in one of those areas for 8 months, took the bus, my bicycle loaded on the front rack)

Frankly, I think they should have put in moving walkways into smaller tunnels in the most dense places. (or above street level) Then at the peripheral of that, put in monorail where the dungeon effect was less noticable. JMHO

 

[Joshua Caldwell]

England has had a price that roughly equals $6/gal for years and doesn't seem to be a real problem over there.