Will oil prices come down like gasoline?

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Seems like crude oil prices are down substantially in the the last 6 months. Local gasoline prices are almost where they were before hurricane Katrina hit a year and a half ago. Will motor oil prices follow a similar pattern and slowly come back down at retail?
 
I doubt it. I think motor oil prices are more a factor of the complex refining process and marketing than crude prices. Cheaper crude means slightly cheaper raw petroleum, but the amount of energy required to refine the oil will be the same.
 
$2.15 for reg unleaded here.

$2.08 at Sams Club with membership card.

It WILL go up this summer. Over $3 I'd say.. (more than last summer...)

Bill
 
The local Shell station was at $1.96 when I drove past this evening, probably down from $2.05 this morning.

I remember the 90 degree day, back in the middle of last July, when I bumped into an old acquaintance at that same station, and the price was $3.21 a gallon, and we were both shaking our heads as to the out-of-control gasoline prices and the billions of $ profits posted by ExxonMobil, etc.

I would have bet $10 against your $1 that a gallon of gasoline, at that station, would never make it below $2.00 within the next six months!
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Over $3 I'd say.. (more than last summer...)





Bill, my best guess is more in the $2.50 to $2.70 range, here in the Midwest.

Of course, if I actually had any inside knowledge of gas prices 6 months from now, I should be placing orders with my broker 24/7!

But I think the high prices last summer were caused by several factors and the huge late spring/early summer gasoline futures market investments by hedge funds that were betting on another active hurricane season.

We could see the result, here in the Chicago/Milwaukee area as gas went from $3.20 in the middle of July to $2.50 by the 3rd week in August.

Just a whole lot of low RVP, summer month, gasoline came out of storage - I assume bought up by the hedge funds & stored at the refinery tank farms - to make room for the higher RVP gas that normally starts shipping thru pipelines during the middle of September.

Just my guess that hedge funds & futures activity will be less this upcoming summer & prices will be more stable.

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But, like I stated, if I knew for sure,I'd be on the phone...
 
You guys have low octane gas over there...87...what other grades do you get?
Our lowest is 93 up here in Johannesburg...1440m above sea level. The turbo cars need the 95, but could really do with 100 RON....makes a noticable difference when I fill with 102.
 
The Saudis, Kuwaitis and the Emirates are pumping as much oil as possible right now. The rest, especially those outside the Persian Gulf, are cheating their quotas. The more they pump, the more the price drops, and the more they have to pump to make the cash they're so greedy for. Rumor is, in conjunction with the oil companies, the effort is to undermine the incomes of Russia and more importantly, Iran, where a change of government would be most welcome. Iranian economy is a mess, 12% inflation and oil revenues thrown away for nukes and stirring the terrorist pot all over the world.

Perhaps we'd see bigger drops in gasoline pricing, but we aren't ballz to the wall producing gasoile right now. These days, we're refining and piping heating oil. We don't have crude problems so much as we have refining and storage issues for finished product..

Next hurricane during summer drive-time while one of the big refineries is undergoing maintenance will probably set off the imbalance that will re-define the upper limit of gasoline prices to the consumer..
 
Aren't new sulfur rules coming for gasoline - just like they did for the diesel. I guarantee if the oil companies have to spend money to upgrade their refineries to meet then new EPA rules in the coming years someone is going to pay for it and I guarantee it won't be big oil or the EPA.
 
Oil prices(the kind we buy in quarts) tend to fluctuate less that gasoline prices because of the lag time. A skid of case oil can sit for weeks and months before being put on the shelf. Also, we buy oil 'occasionally', but buy gas weekly(or daily/monthly).
It all enters in.
Petroleum is used for many other things beside gas and motor oil.
Plastics is a big one, chemicals and even food are also users of black gold.
 
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You guys have low octane gas over there...87...what other grades do you get?
Our lowest is 93 up here in Johannesburg...1440m above sea level. The turbo cars need the 95, but could really do with 100 RON....makes a noticable difference when I fill with 102.




US octane is not RON. It is something like (RON + MON)/2, thus the numbers seem smaller since MON usually comes out smaller than MON.

Wikipedia

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but in the United States and some other countries the headline number is the average of the RON and the MON, sometimes called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), Road Octane Number (RdON), Pump Octane Number (PON), or (R+M)/2. Because of the 8 to 10 point difference noted above, this means that the octane in the United States will be about 4 to 5 points lower than the same fuel elsewhere: 87 octane fuel, the "regular" gasoline in the US and Canada, would be 91-95 (regular) in Europe.


 
Yeah but....when gas was hitting $3/gallon, I was buying Havoline (as an example) for $1.29 at AAP. Now local prices for unleaded hit $1.89 yesterday where I live, but Havoline is $2.29 at AAP. There was a lag effect with OTC motor oil prices going up, I'm suspicious (hopefull) that there will be a corresponding lag effect going back down. And it may show up in the form of new "promotions" at retail. Yes, I know....pure speculation on my part. But I'm going to work off my current oil stash b4 loading up any more at today's prices.
 
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Wikipedia

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but in the United States and some other countries the headline number is the average of the RON and the MON, sometimes called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), Road Octane Number (RdON), Pump Octane Number (PON), or (R+M)/2. Because of the 8 to 10 point difference noted above, this means that the octane in the United States will be about 4 to 5 points lower than the same fuel elsewhere: 87 octane fuel, the "regular" gasoline in the US and Canada, would be 91-95 (regular) in Europe.







Thanks. Reason I ask is certain manufacturers refused to allow some of their cars to come into SA because we only had 93 up on the reef and they felt that would damage the motors....since we have 95 they allow those models in...
 
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