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Why crude oil price dropped, but gas price at pump is up?

Is there any regulations with the oil/gas company or gas stations?

Crude oil propped below in the past month and now at below $40/barrel. In the mean time, the price at the pump raised from $1.79 to $1.85/gal for regular 87 octane. I remember few yrs ago at $40/barrel, the price at pump was around $1.70/gal.

4 Answers

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  • Bub
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Simple answer: because the can.

    Big picture answer: because the big oil companies have lots of friends in D.C.

  • Supplies are up. Crude as been going up. When you see crude prices, they are prices in the future. It usually takes about 30 days for that price of crude to reach the market.

    However prices are a little too high. Also at $40 crude price, it cost more to make gas than a couple of years ago. Their employees insurance alone has gone up at least 25% in a couple of years.

    Oil companies have nothing to do with the price of gas. The banks on wall street own much more gas than any oil company.

    Watch this video that was on 60 minutes

    http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4713382n

  • ribbs
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    As i think of a lot of human beings have stated, crude oil is just one element of the cost chain. It takes some month to refine and via that element, refining potential drives the cost on the pump plenty extra advantageous than strikes in WTI crude.

  • Drew H
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    The cost of producing oil went up with the price of oil. Since the price fell to $40/bbl the price of producing the oil has not fallen. I am a production engineer for ExxonMobil and my job is get the oil out of the ground. The funny thing is that when the price of oil goes up, so do all of our costs for pipes and supplies (our suppliers raise their prices because they know we can afford it at $140 oil). In fact, our profit margins stayed about the same.

    Now that prices have fallen, our suppliers have not dropped their prices yet, so now it is no longer economic for me to hire them. I am producing less oil since I can no longer afford it. Again slowing the supply of gasoline. Also, gasoline taxes haven risen under the democrats to encourage you to conserve gas and to promote alternative energy.

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