Class Action Claims Shale Oil Companies Charge Too Much

[Terrel L. Shields]

Some non-producing states are suing gas companies claiming they are colluding with each other on prices.

Absurd in my opinion. Gas and oil prices are international, and the trading pits and hedge funds dictate prices. Anyone with stock in these companies knows that over the past 25 years, they've not been exactly a stellar investment. After all according to a FED inflation calculator, the $1.28 gasoline i bought in 1980 in today's money is $4.71/gallon.

I paid $2.55/gallon a few days ago. About the same that I paid in South Fork, Colorado in 2005 when my brother and cousin went with me to update our family mineral partnership. Note too that diesel is cheaper than gasoline then. Now it is a buck higher largely due to the super low Sulphur content and the necessity of using DEF. And as a result, diesels are using about 50% more fuel than they were which makes no sense to me whatsoever.

 

[ucbruin]

"Absurd in my opinion. Gas and oil prices are international, and the trading pits and hedge funds dictate prices. Anyone with stock in these companies knows that over the past 25 years, they've not been exactly a stellar investment. After all according to a FED inflation calculator, the $1.28 gasoline i bought in 1980 in today's money is $4.71/gallon."


I thought you'd blame Joe and the dems....
Just like INFLATION....

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I thought you'd blame Joe and the dems....

He is largely responsible when he stops leasing. For instance, Wyoming and Montana have not has a lease sale in a full year plus despite the court ordering the Biden administration to comply. Additionally, he continues to blame them for high prices despite record production. And that production is the product of drilling years ago because it cannot be instantly turned from drill lease to gasoline for your car. The traders in the pits are not oil men. They are hedge funds and traders in Connecticut and Chicago, etc. And they are trying to predict price and global impacts upon price. And bad government policy is to blame. By killing a lot of leases in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration is setting the stage for a huge reduction in oil production there. It takes years to drill, develop, transport oil to the refinery from the Gulf and most land leases on US ground will face a lawsuit from an environmentalist that might delay drilling for 2 years, then it takes months to prepare the site, get the archeological and biological studies done, build the site, drill the well and complete it. So, it takes years for those as well. There is a lag time. What is happening now will not be impacting the markets for at least two years. Biden was correct IN PART that the Russo-Ukraine war jacked prices up (and have since dropped) but the administrative foot dragging is still stopping the price of oil from dropping even more.

 

[ucbruin]

With the lag time scenario....
I guess Biden inflation is the result of lag time of Trump spending....
AMEN....

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I guess Biden inflation is the result of lag time of Trump spending....
AMEN....

nope. Inflation lag is a different animal. In oil there is simply a lag between the idea of a well, the leasing of a well after nomination and an auction, then threading the legal landmines then finally drilling, completing, producing, refining and selling oil as a finished product.

The lag of inflation is real to some extend but quickly expresses itself in forced lockdowns - which all happened under Biden...not Trump. Yes, there is some impact during the inflation that relates to lockdown in China but again, how did we get here? We under Clinton, then Bush opened the floodgates of cheap by encouraging Globalism. And even Krugman agrees now that Globalism hurt, not helped, American workers.