$2.00 Gas ?

That would be approx £21 (UK) . Fill those 2 six gallons over here and it would set you back about £68 or $136 . You've got it cheap

As the pundants were discussing the $4.00 a gallon gas due by Memorial day the other day I finally heard an honest reason from the oil industry rep. The guys on wall street who were losing money dumped their stocks and switched to oil commodities which they can manipulate. They are now getting richer by the minute pushing up prices for no other reason than their personal greed and the knowledge that they'll get away with it. Maybe any commodity trader friends should be invited fishing. Leave the bait at home. I'm sure something can be found to use. Who knows, those that can swim might actually get the message.

Just finished reviewing the costing on a project for end Q2/middle Q3 this year.
Offsite gasoline costed at 1.45/litre. (5.48/gallon). Of course there's a bit of a fudge factor in that forecast but that cost isn't unrealistic.
Last summer the highest offsite paid for a litre was 1.31.

Note: The ball buster in doing the forecasts is trying to nail down which reserve currency to convert from, Euro or US$. Doing a weighted mix for now.

Well, the oil industry companies are making huge profits:

Exxon had revenue of $404 billion with $40.6 billion in profits.
Chevron revenue of $204 billion with $17.1 billion in profits.
ConocoPhilips revenue of $188 billion with $15.5 billion in profits.
Shell revenue of $355 billion with $27.3 billion in profits.
BP revenue of $291 billion with $20.8 billion in profits.

Does that justify increasing the cost of gas at the pump?

Does that also justify tax credits from the governments?

Yes those profits and subsidies are justified. What justifies them is that they can get away with it. What are you going to do to stop them? What can you do? Are you going to vote out your legislators? Are you going to clog their phone lines with complaints? Are you going to form picket lines in front of oil exec's homes and offices? Are you going to push gas stations out of business by forming picket lines in front of them? No? Then the oil companies are entitled to take every cent they can pry from your wallet.
You aren't waiting for their love of mankind or concience to kick in are you?

fuel terminology

Can someone help me with fuel terminology? The converson yacht I'm looking at indicates 13 m3 for fuel. How much is that?

A cubic meter (m3) is a metric ton or 1000 liters. Depending on the gravity of the fuel, assuming you are talking about diesel, it would be just over 4000 U.S. gallons.

Now I feel stupid but thank you. I'm rather new to this but love the site!

Nothing to feel stupid about, it was a very reasonable question.

Well it seams that our Government assumes that paying $1.27 per Litre of Fuel is a bit low….
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VICTORIA -- Driving and other fuel-dependent activities are about to get more expensive as British Columbia becomes the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a consumer-based carbon tax.
The carbon tax will apply to virtually all fossil fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home heating fuel. B.C.'s carbon tax, the provincial government claims, will be the most comprehensive in the world.

Taylor said the new carbon tax will begin July 1, starting at a rate that will have drivers paying about an extra 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline at the pumps.
The tax will then increase each year after that until 2012, reaching a final price of about 7.2 cents per litre at the pumps.
After that, Taylor said, it will rest with the government of the day to decide if the tax rate should change any further.

My friend to the north,
Add to that the changes to NAFTA that are coming when we change administrations next year and you may just beat us to becoming a bankrupt, third world nation or at least your citizens may. Don't be bitter though, we'll be following very closely behind. Can anybody tell me why we are still subsidizing the oil companies?

Isn't Taylor significantly composed of Carbon?

TAXES TAXES TAXES
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Are Americans specifically being gouged by OPEC?

Quite the opposite. The most expensive places in the world to buy gas are The Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Denmark and Belgium, all of which are now above $7.00 per gallon at the pumps. Of course, all of which are socialist governments with even heavier taxes per gallon than America.

The least expensive places in the world are Venezuela, Nigeria, Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, ranging between .15 cents and .95 cents per gallon at their pumps. That’s because these are the largest oil saturated countries in the world.

Where does the USA get their gas from...

I wouldn’t get to excited about loosing NAFTA, we have over a Billion $ of trade a day, a lot of US cars and parts are made in Ontario and you rely on our natural resources for survival.
Nixing NAFTA could easily push gas over $6 a gallon at your local pump (more taxes for ya)

Ya really, Carbon Carol… not a good “legacy” for her, she’s trying to encourage Vancouver’s Public Transportation use at everyone’s and the whole Provinces expense.
How long before the other Major City's follow.

Just a shot in the dark, but isn't BC pretty close to being carbon neutral anyway? The amount of atmospheric carbon that is tied up in lumber and BC's other fibrous crop and then exported has got to be substantial. Of course if the government puts a bounty on those pine beetles I doubt that there'd be much of an argument. Flew low level through the rocks last summer and there's a lot of dead forest...

Yes, it's very sad. Unfortunately it just doesn't get COLD enough to kill the pest anymore, and they have breached the Rocky's, it doesn't look good for Banff and Jasper.
As to the Forest Industry, it's Tanked a couple of years age with the collapse of the US housing market.
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Earth Forum PostsA steamy tale of sex, CO2 and destruction in the woods
Posted on March 19th, 2008
By Christa Marshall
Climatewire: Two years ago, Reese Halter, a biologist, paused in a forest in Grand Prairie, Alberta. He had noticed something odd: It was raining mountain pine beetles. After 40 minutes the pesky, voracious insects covered his hair and clothes.

“The sky was blackened, like it was a vicious hailstorm,” recalled Halter, the founder of Global Forest Science, an international conservation group. “They literally sounded like staccato machine guns as they hit farmers’ roofs.”

Millions of the beetles, known for ravaging pine forests stretching from Colorado to British Columbia, had gotten sucked into a massive wind storm carrying them eastward across the Rocky Mountains to Alberta. They had caught a ride on one of nature’s shuttles.

The insects’ introduction to the central part of Alberta resulted from their explosion on the Western side of the Rocky Mountains, a phenomenon helped by warmer temperatures. With global warming, many scientists are concerned that the beetles will thrive in a once-hostile part of Alberta and move into the pristine Canadian Boreal Forest.

The 2006 incident was the first time the pests settled in central Alberta, but they continue to move from British Columbia through valleys into southern Alberta, which has experienced beetle outbreaks in the past. Warming trends also could increase their numbers there, many experts say.

The mountain pine beetle, which is the size of a small ant, wreaks its destruction through a multistage process. In the late summer, the female of the species seeks out a tree to infest and takes a bite out of the wood of a suitable candidate.

Oops ... mea culpa

An observant, and much wiser, reader just pointed out that my response to the original poster regarding the number of gallons (US) in his 13 m3 fuel tanks may be off by quite a bit. My calculation was based on marine bunker fuel being sold by the ton and a m3 is considered as 1 metric ton or somewhere around 310 gallons per ton for diesel or gas oil depending on gravity.

I was reminded that a simple conversion (which is probably what the poster was looking for) of 3.78 liters per gallon would give just over 3400 gallons as opposed to my figure of just over 4000 gallons.

If the poster ordered 500 gallons too much fuel I sincerely apologize!

'What are the Americans and the Canadians complaining about? It would be so much worse if they lived in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, etc. where the price is really high.' The oil companies love that mantra as do the comodities brokers who are also getting filthy rich off the people who can only afford to own an old gas guzzler. (There's a big market for american sedans from the 60's and 70's in Mexico and Central America.) Has anybody noticed that where the price for gas is the highest is in the most civilized areas where it is least likely that an oil exec and his family will be taken to the woods, and the cheapest where it is most likely to happen. I forget, What happens to you if you rob someone in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia?

UK Boaters take note

....from another forum


The search for alternative propulsion systems for pleasure craft will probably become far more urgent in the UK from November. Only commercial vessels will continue to pay reduced duty on red diesel, so that UK boaters will see the cost will rise to around £1-20 per litre from around 60 pence per litre.

Red diesel is a more polluting fuel that standard Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel (ULSD) for cars, and is therefore subject to a higher rate of duty. Currently, red diesel has a rebated duty rate of just 9.69 pence per litre, so boaters will have to shoulder the difference between 56.94ppl and 9.69ppl (47.25ppl) from November.

This means UK Boaters will be more than the cost of white ULSD from roadside petrol stations.

http://www.ybw.com/mbm/redalert/blog/20080128180647redalert_blog.html

This also means that the fuel vendor is handed the responsibility of
differentiating between commercial users, who will remain legally allowed to use red, and leisure users.

http://www.mbmclub.com/auto/newsdesk/20080128134014mbmnews.html

The news came through today from HM Revenue & Customs, with the following wording: "Private pleasure vessels will continue to be permitted to use marked (red diesel) but at a rate for heavy oil, repaying the rebated duty via the Registered Dealers in Controlled Oils who will declare this to HMRC. An allowance for domestic use will be permitted."

Here is the sting in the tail. Using Straight Vegetable Oil seemed like a reasonable option, but HMRC's Dave Fitzgerald told MBM that it would become a criminal offence to use red diesel for propulsion without proof that you paid the full rate of duty. They dip you tank and find it's white, so the questions start. If you are buying white ULSD from a service station, you are buying a less polluting fuel and apart from the difficulty of transporting it to your vessel and you show proof of purchase, all should be well. You might even be praised for trying to reduce air pollution. OTOH, they might ask for the extra duty on the grounds that you should be using red diesel in your boat and you are avoiding duty by using ULSD. Don't laugh. Lawyers will tell you the practice in courts of law, not courts of justice.

The duty paid was originally only applicable to road vehicles and HM Customs also took their cut if SVO was in your road vehicle. Boats are a different case. mSVO in boats could end up with higher duty than SVO in cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_vegetable_oil

The tax harmonisation rules of the EU are responsible for the hike in duty which means recreational boaters will pay more for lower quality fuel and boats don't drive on roads. What next? If you put a wind generator and solar panels on your boat, invest in the EEstor technology and electric motors, then you sail everywhere, without using fossil fuels, the EU will find a reason to tax that as well.

I do have one message of cheer though. As the ice returns to Europe and the entire population of 450 millions or so pack up and move south, the Atlantic will freeze over and the hardiest amongst us will be able once again to walk to North America from Galicia living on the ice and chewing seal blubber,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis

I am led to believe it's an acquired taste.

Pericles