Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

Couvi
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The Oil Patch is the only place I ever heard of jennets being used. They were used to transport pipe and keep pressure on them until the collar peckers bolted them together.
Pat Holscher
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According to the morning paper here, we're below $60/bbl nationwide, and at $53/bbl locally, with the price still falling.

Maybe Joe Puleo will know, but I have to suspect if we fall to $40/bbl, and I've seen one prediction we will, we actually be at all time low prices, in real terms.
JV Puleo
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That may well be correct. But, the problem with all historical cost comparisons is that they don't (or can't) take all sorts of peripheral factors into consideration. For instance... the use of oil today is not optional for most people. If my grandfather didn't want to buy expensive gas, he didn't actually NEED to go anywhere in his car because he could take the street car to work. I can't... so I'm committed to traveling a minimum of 20 miles every day and there is no other practical way of doing it other than the automobile. So, the impact of the price is very different regardless of what it is. I suspect that the .75 cents or $1.00 or so per gallon I was paying when just out of high school is relatively much higher since I was working full time and bringing home about $65 or $70 per week.
Pat Holscher
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JV Puleo wrote:That may well be correct. But, the problem with all historical cost comparisons is that they don't (or can't) take all sorts of peripheral factors into consideration. For instance... the use of oil today is not optional for most people. If my grandfather didn't want to buy expensive gas, he didn't actually NEED to go anywhere in his car because he could take the street car to work. I can't... so I'm committed to traveling a minimum of 20 miles every day and there is no other practical way of doing it other than the automobile. So, the impact of the price is very different regardless of what it is. I suspect that the .75 cents or $1.00 or so per gallon I was paying when just out of high school is relatively much higher since I was working full time and bringing home about $65 or $70 per week.
Truly excellent points!
Pat Holscher
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I can't help but note the interesting recent changes in the price of petroleum oil, which now means that oil is likely trading at an all time historic low.

Oil fell a week ago or so below $40/bbl. In real terms, it's as cheap as its ever been. Really cheap.

This is due, mostly, to the actions of Saudi Arabia which is depressing the price. There's a number of theories as to why, but they're keeping it low. So low, in fact, that it's causing a crash in the American industry. Ecuador, an OPEC country, is now actually selling its oil below its cost of production.

This past week oil went back up to around $45/bbl, still really darned cheap, due to Saudi Arabian troops entering norther Yemen as an intervenor in that countries civil war. That civil war has seen prior regional intervention, including intervention by Egypt, but it tends to stay off the US television screens so who knows how long this jump in the price will last. Even at the increased price, however, oil is really darned cheap.
Pat Holscher
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I was looking something up for another reason, related to the recent proposal being floated in Congress that the U.S. lift the ban on petroleum oil (crude) export, and found that the US had become an oil importer starting in 1948.

That surprised me a bit. Quite a bit earlier than I would have supposed, but coincident with the big boom in the economy following World War Two and the Great Depression.
Pat Holscher
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An observation, and some news, on the bizarre nature of this story.

Given all the other news going on, many probably didn't notice that OPEC, due to the Saudis, failed to set a cap on production.

In other words, we're now an an uncontrolled oil market for the first time since the early 1970s, and the production trend is up. A Saudi effort seemingly designed to put a stop to increased US and Russian production did at least slow the upward US trend but it didn't return Saudi market share to the pre US boom level. Prices have been going down, and given this development, they're going to keep going down. My guess is that they could go down quite a bit.

And on that front, I saw gasoline for sale for $1.87 today for the first time in years. It's hard to imagine. This has to start having some sort of deflationary effect on prices in general at some point.
Gordon_M
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It'll be fine Pat, diesel and petrol here in the UK are now not far above £1 per litre, but nobody is celebrating yet. Of course transporting horses in diesel horse boxes is a lot cheaper than it was a couple of years back. :D
Pat Holscher
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Gasoline is actually down to about $1.67 here and diesel at $2.09. Hard to imagine.

The price per barrel actually dropped yesterday with the news of the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran becoming worse.
Gordon_M
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Fuel update.

Diesel and Petrol here in the UK now down below £1 per litre - that would translate to around $4.50c per gallon though. Enjoy while you can :clap:
wkambic
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We spent New Yeas with my BIL in Pensacola. Gas was running $1.80-$1.99, depending. Up and back along I-65/I-59 it ranged $1.70 plus or minus $.10.

In Pensacola I saw something I've not seen in years: diesel was running 2-4 cents LESS than gasoline in a few locations. Along the interstate it was still running 20 cents a gal. more, plus or minus a few cents.
Steve Haupt
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Greetings,
Here near Sacramento regular is priced from $2.39 to $2.69 nearer the S.F. Bay area.
Diesel is at $2.45 at the truck stops.
The Legislators tried to put in place a cut of 50% in use of diesel and gasoline in the next ten years. The people spoke up but the governor is now going to regulate the cuts through the air board. His other ideas are the train that connects two farm towns in the Central Valley that started at 9 billion dollars but will end up costing taxpayers 85 billion dollars.
So be happy you are in other areas (except Scotland's price).
Cheers,
Steve Haupt
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