This is not a rant. I’d rather it didn’t wind up in The Pit. This is just an observation – “my humble opinion”, if you will – that the oil companies are urinating on our shoes and telling us it’s raining.
There was a refinery explosion yesterday. Interestingly, the freeway was moving better than usual. But what stikes me as strange is this: Every year, the oil companies cite “low supplies” and jack up the price of gasoline. And refinery explosions seem to happen more frequently than they used to. How convenient. (I’m sure the refineries have insurance and anything that blows up will be replaced with newer, better equipment.)
The oil companies have been making gasoline for a long time. What? A hundred years or so? Surely by now they must have figured out the times of the year when demand increases. Yet they seem surprised that supplies dwindle and they are “forced” to raise prices. Surely they can increase production when demand is low, so that consumers don’t have to pay so much when demand is higher?
I’m happy to see the new hybrid cars. I see more of them and more electric-only cars on the road all the time. I can’t wait for fuel cell technology to become cheap enough to be practical. By raising prices on the slimmest of reasons, Big Oil may well be digging its own grave.
In My Humble Opinion.
I was listening to KCRW this morning. The refinery owner (Toxic-something) says that production will not be affected; but prices were up seven cents per gallon overnight because buyers are worried that production will be affected.
