Reply to: The doubling in the price of oil

[Pondlife]

Forecourts make little profit, hence the proliferation of additional sales streams in them, such as selling cofee etc

Downstream is energy intensive and competitive and doesn't make huge profits either. Chemicals business is marginal.

Exploration is the big boys moneymaker. Oh, and the obscene government VAT and tax take (76%?).

Exactly.

Lubricants is a non earner. Chemicals better but not really. Refineries are being sold by the big boys in droves.

It's all about upstream.

[hyperD]

Forecourts make little profit, hence the proliferation of additional sales streams in them, such as selling cofee etc

Downstream is energy intensive and competitive and doesn't make huge profits either. Chemicals business is marginal.

Exploration is the big boys moneymaker. Oh, and the obscene government VAT and tax take (76%?).

[AtW]

They are correct. The profit is not made on the forecourt.

They are correct - it's just the biggest profit from sales on forecourt is made by the Govt.

HTH

[hyperD]

China has a huge amount of coal reserves. They're laughing all the way to world domination.

[Pondlife]

They can buy oil with their offshore company and sell it expensive to their onshore company thus claiming that they make little profit on the forecourt.

They are correct. The profit is not made on the forecourt.

[Paddy]

Apparently (before dollar got devalued) making fuels from coal had break even point of $60, the main problem was that constructing refineries will take years and then they would have to operate for years to break even overall, so nobody (from oil companies) wanted to invest in it, and why would they if their primary product goes in price all the time? It's like asking house building company to actually look at their costs and build cheaper.

Well put. Another reason for oil companies not wanting to exploit coal technology is that it really needs to be mined, processed and consumed in the same country. Oil companies find it easy to ship oil around the globe and play a three card trick. They can buy oil with their offshore company and sell it expensive to their onshore company thus claiming that they make little profit on the forecourt.

[AtW]

Yes, but not cheaply.

Apparently (before dollar got devalued) making fuels from coal had break even point of $60, the main problem was that constructing refineries will take years and then they would have to operate for years to break even overall, so nobody (from oil companies) wanted to invest in it, and why would they if their primary product goes in price all the time? It's like asking house building company to actually look at their costs and build cheaper.

[Paddy]

Germany was doing it 60 years ago whilst being bombed regularly.

Yes, but not cheaply.

[AtW]

Oil from coal.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06229/714268-28.stm

Germany was doing it 60 years ago whilst being bombed regularly.

[Paddy]

Oil from coal.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06229/714268-28.stm

[Diestl]

The oil barons know their time is up, so they are raking in as much as the can and buying up renwable energy companies.

[DimPrawn]

Because I bought a car that gets 13MPG??

Then invest in Oil companies and Oil ETC's.

They go up you can afford to run your monster truck. They go down and filling up doesn't hurt so much.

[Money Money Money]

Because I bought a car that gets 13MPG??

[MrMark]

Maybe Gordo's cracked it. If all countries used QE to say pay millions of workers to stay in work producing widgets or NHS database implementations, then all economies would recover. Prices would go up as well, but currencies would stay fairly stable as everyone's doing it. Boomed!

[DimPrawn]

Being in a cretinous mood today (or is that every day), you've left out the real, simple answer.
The economic stimuli around the world have led to a rise in demand.


HTH

That's the most cretinous option so far.