Brainboy's Journal: The Elephant in the Room OR Oil companies suck

I've been treating the whole issue of oil and gas prices as the elephant in the room while the whole New Orleans situation has been going on. It doesn't seems right for me to bitch about gas prices while people are still dying from the aftermath of the hurricane. But this is fucking ridiculous.

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=101320#

Oil companies came under new fire yesterday when it emerged that ExxonMobil's profits are likely to soar above $10 billion this quarter on the back of the fuel crisis.
          That's $110 million a day, and more net income than any company has ever made in a quarter. It's also a stunning 69 percent increase over the same period a year ago and a 34 percent jump from the $7.6 billion Exxon made just last quarter.

WTF? But I suppose its to be expected that oil companies are making ridiculous amounts of money while the rest of the economy suffers. Greedy bastards.

Oh and for those in Connecticut (and upstate NY), you have an addition reason to be pissed at Mobil-Exxon.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-gas2sep08,0,1829222.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines

After peaking last Thursday, gasoline futures, which are traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange and help determine the wholesale and retail costs for gasoline, have dropped more than 30 cents a gallon the past three days.

The national average was $3.04 a gallon yesterday, down two cents from an all-time high Monday, according to AAA's daily fuel survey.

Connecticut won't be following the nation's downward trend anytime soon, said Michael Fox, executive director of the Gasoline and Automotive Service Dealers of America in Stamford.

Yeah, they're jacking up our prices while other parts of the US have steady prices or even drops.

Strangely enough

[ces]

We haven't seen much of a run-up in gas prices here in WA state.

This is the first time in a while I can remember gas prices around here being LOWER than the national average.

Being a separate crude and refined product market from the rest of the country which usually makes the West Coast more expensive is actually working in our favor this time.

Re:Strangely enough

[Brainboy]

Fortunately the prices seem only to affect Mobil, Exxon and Shell stations. There's a Gulf around that's at 2.99 so its not too bad. It's the principle of the thing.

Re:Strangely enough

[ces]

Yea, noticed that the Shell stations are much higher than anyone else around here too.

Some independent stations have cheap gas, but of the big boys BP/Arco has the best prices.