Tag: Oil Companies

Those Damn Gas Prices

We all get sticker shock at times when we stop off to fill our gas tank….but then it comes down a wee bit and we accept that as a lower price.

But why are all gas prices within a couple of cents of each other?

I believe that is called ‘price fixing’.

Consumer advocates demanded congressional hearings on alleged price fixing by oil giants on Monday after the Federal Trade Commission banned an executive from serving on the board of Chevron, saying he had colluded with international representatives to keep oil prices high.

The FTC said it would prohibit John B. Hess, CEO of the Hess Corporation, from serving on Chevron’s Board of Directors as part of Chevron’s acquisition of the company, citing Hess’ public and private communications “with the past and current secretaries general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and an official from Saudi Arabia.”

“In these communications, Mr. Hess stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged these officials to take actions on these issues and speak about them at different events,” said the FTC.

The FTC’s complaint marks the second time since May that an oil executive has been accused of collusion and price fixing to ensure Americans would continue paying high prices for gas, adding an estimated $500 per year, per vehicle, in fuel costs for the average U.S. household.

…

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said that “jail time should seriously be considered,” highlighting the financial pain Sheffield’s actions added to households already struggling to afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials.

The five largest U.S. oil companies have reported more than $250 billion in profits over the last two years.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ftc-oil-price-fixing

But I will bet that these thieves get away with it….after all they own the Congress.

It is not just the oil industry that is doing this….agribusiness….car dealers….you pick a commodity and there will be some sort of collusion going on.

These corporations will get a slap on the wrist and pay a small fine and promise to never do it again….a promise that is broken before the ink is dry on the deal.

Time for somebody to step up and take on these thieves….and I wait.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Recycling Con?

I have been recycling for many years ever since my city started their program but in recent years many articles have made me think that I may be wasting my efforts….I wrote about it once before….

Recycle Or Not

California is suing Exxon for deceiving the public for decades….

California has just filed a blockbuster lawsuit against ExxonMobil, alleging that the industry giant has been lying for years about how easy it is to recycle plastic, reports the Guardian.

  • “For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” said state attorney general Rob Bonta. The suit is the culmination of a two-year state investigation.
  • The company is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of substances used to make plastics, and the state blames it for “creating an environmental blight that has cost the state billions of dollars to clean,” per the Los Angeles Times. The suit seeks unspecified damages
  • The lawsuit asserts that the company has falsely promoted the claim that virtually all plastic is recyclable, even though the figure is estimated to be 5% or 6% in the US, per the Washington Post. Americans have continued buying plastic products deluded by this belief, asserts the suit, which specifically cites the “chasing arrows” logo on plastic products as being misleading to consumers.
  • In an interview with the New York Times, Bonta said the company’s “myth of recycling” had fueled the world’s plastic pollution. A consortium of environmental groups including the Sierra Club filed a similar lawsuit against ExxonMobil on Monday as well. The company had not responded publicly as of early Monday afternoon.

If you would like a more detailed analysis…..

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday sued oil giant ExxonMobil for allegedly deceiving the public about the recyclability of plastics so as to continue increasing production.

The 147-page lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, came following a yearslong investigation that environmental groups were hoping would lead to legal action. They widely celebrated Bonta’s move.

“This is the single most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastics industry for its persistent and continued lying about plastics recycling,” Judith Enck, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics and a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official, said in a statement.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/california-sues-exxonmobil-plastics

What has happened to the processes that I have written about top neutralize plastic waste?

Answers are needed…..and soon.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Recycle Or Not

I am one of those ‘tree huggers’ that recycles and have been for decades….but in recent years with so many reports about the useless trend of recycling has got me wondering if I should continue to do so.

There are a bunch of disturbing reports about plastic waste…..

A report released Thursday estimates that countries worldwide are on pace to generate 220 million tonnes of total plastic waste this year, a finding that comes as governments are set to convene in Ottawa, Canada later this month to hash out a binding global treaty to limit the toxic pollution that is inundating waterways and communities across the planet.

The new report from EA – Earth Action (EA) projects that Plastic Overshoot Day—the point at which the amount of plastic waste produced exceeds the capacity of global management systems—will arrive on September 5 this year. Over a third of the total plastic waste created this year will end up in nature, according to the analysis.

On average, each person globally contributes 28 kilograms of plastic pollution per year. Previous research has shown that just 20 companies are responsible for more than half of the world’s total single-use plastic waste.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/plastic-waste-2024

That is a scary amount of waste….but there is always recycling, right?

The most recent article shows me that we all may have been ‘hoodwinked’ by big oil….

The petrochemical industry—including major oil companies like ExxonMobil—knew for decades that recycling was not a sustainable solution to the problem of plastic waste, yet continued to promote it in order to avoid regulation and deceive consumers into continuing to buy and use their products, a report released Thursday by the Center for Climate Integrity reveals.

The report, titled The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry Deceived the Public for Decades and Caused the Plastic Waste Crisis, includes newly disclosed industry documents proving that companies and trade groups knew that plastics could not be recycled indefinitely in the 1980s and 90s even as they launched a massive public relations campaign to sell voters and policymakers on the process.

“This evidence shows that many of the same fossil fuel companies that knew and lied for decades about how their products cause climate change have also known and lied to the public about plastic recycling,” Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) president Richard Wiles said in a statement. “The oil industry’s lies are at the heart of the two most catastrophic pollution crises in human history.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/plastics-industry-lie-recycling

Here is another link to this study….

Explosive new report accuses major corporations of lying for decades: ‘It’s clearly fraud they’re engaged in’

I believe there is a term being thrown around these days….’greenwashing’…..WTF?

Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or misleading information about how a company’s products are environmentally sound. Greenwashing involves making an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company’s products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they actually do.

In addition, greenwashing may occur when a company attempts to emphasize sustainable aspects of a product to overshadow the company’s involvement in environmentally damaging practices. Performed through the use of environmental imagery, misleading labels, and hiding tradeoffs, greenwashing is a play on the term “whitewashing,” which means using false information to intentionally hide wrongdoing, error, or an unpleasant situation in an attempt to make it seem less bad than it is.

So should we continue to recycle?

“No,” Cirino told Salon. “Even if plastic recycling rates were higher, recycling alone could never come close to solving the serious and wide-ranging health, justice, socio-economic, and environmental crises caused by industries’ continued plastic production and plastic pollution, which go hand in hand.” Cirino argued that, given how plastic production has grown exponentially and its pollution problems have likewise worsened, emphasizing recycling over meaningful solutions is at best irresponsible.

“It’s clear recycling is not enough to solve the plastic pollution crisis,” Cirino concluded. “The fossil fuel industry, governments, and corporations really need to turn off the plastic tap, and the UN Plastics Treaty could be an opportunity to do so on a global level—if member states can come together and form a treaty with real ambition. Ultimately, our world must decide what it values: money or life.”

(salon.com)

A couple of years ago I wrote about recycling here on IST….

Do You Recycle?

Ultimately this is one of those issues that the individual has to decide what is best (pause here for side splitting laughter….like most have no care what happens as long as their Mtn Dew is cold)

Me? My family has already started dialing back the amount of plastic we discard…..we care what happens if you do not then that is your problem.

Be Samrt!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

They Go Up And Seldom Come Down

WE all get sticker shock when we fill our cars with gas…..the prices just keep rising and we keep feeding the problem that is causing this situation…..with out some relief this will be a major issue in the elections…..

The average gas price in the US hit an eye-watering $5 a gallon Saturday, and analysts say the record-breaking price is a massive problem for President Biden and his admnistration ahead of the midterm elections—especially since relief could be a long time away. Recent polls show that an overwhelming majority of voters consider inflation a very serious problem and almost half of them say Biden has “a lot” of responsibilty for it, the Hill reports. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently said that with “such a demand and supply mismatch on the global market for oil,” it could be fall or winter before prices return to $4 a gallon or less.

Analysts say inflation has played a major role in lowering Biden’s approval rating, which now stands at just 38%, according to a Marist poll released Thursday. Matt Bennett at the Third Way think tank tells the Hill that part of the problem is that many Americans don’t realize how little control the president has over day-to-day gas prices. “I think he needs to get caught trying to do everything possible,” Bennett says. “Haul the CEOs of the oil companies in to the White House and demand that they tell him exactly what they need to get production up in the short term.”

Biden toured the port of Los Angeles Friday and promised that his admnistration will continue to do “everything we can to lower the prices for the American people,” the AP reports. He blamed corporate profits for surging inflation and said ExxonMobil in particular should focus on boosting production instead of maximizing profits. “Exxon made more money than God this year,” he said.

Now the question remains to be asked….just who sets the gas prices?

If you haven’t been paying attention, gas prices are up. This has happened before, to the great detriment of every corner of the economy but gas prices, and it will happen again. Why, exactly, does this keep happening?

As YouTube analyst Climate Town explains, the answer is complicated. So complicated, in fact, that there is no single person you can point to, throwing a lever and setting prices absolutely. Quite the contrary. There is a cartel that throws a big lever to set gas prices, but even they face factors out of their control. Gas prices correlate most directly to the price of crude oil, so the biggest factor in that price is instead fluctuations in the geopolitical landscape and world economy that have an effect on both supply and demand.

That does not mean nobody has any direct hand in the price of oil, though. While the world’s general reliance on oil for just about everything mean that demand is almost entirely hard wired to the state of the world, supply is certainly open to manipulation. That leaves room for the people actually getting that oil out of the ground, both multi-national oil companies and the OPEC+ cartel that directly manipulates supply out of nations with nationalized oil reserves, to keep prices artificially high in order to maximize profit along that curve. OPEC should be familiar to any car audience. It was OPEC cutting off America from its supply of oil that triggered the gas crisis of 1973. OPEC+ now includes Russia as well, but it’s not like Russia has been doing anything big in the world of politics, war, or the control of oil lately!

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a40243822/so-who-actually-sets-gas-prices/

We are the culprits.  Our gas guzzlers are the problem.  If you will not change your habits then I say suck it up.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Keystone–Was There Any Doubt?

WE have been debating for a year or more over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline…..and of course most of it was rhetoric…..I was opposed because those jobs it will create will be only until completion and it will NOT effect the price of oil and oil companies do not have the best record for a safe environment or effective disaster control…..I voiced my opposition in the early days and then let it go….why?  I watched the news and the media and in my mind there was never any doubt that it would be approved……

Environmentalists are going to hate this one: A State Department review of the controversial Keystone oil pipeline raises no major environmental objections, reports the New York Times. The report concludes that the proposed pipeline from Canada to Texas would not affect global greenhouse gas emissions in a significant way, reports the Washington Post. This doesn’t mean the project is now a slam-dunk, but the environmental assessment was seen as one of its biggest remaining hurdles. President Obama has said that he would sign off on the pipeline only if it didn’t “significantly exacerbate” carbon pollution, and the report seems to satisfy that requirement. So what’s next? John Kerry and his State Department now must consider other factors beyond the environment—the economic impact, relations with Canada, etc.—in making a final decision. As one State official tells the Post: The report “does not answer the broader question about how a decision on this potential pipeline fits in with broader national and international efforts to address climate change and climate priorities or other questions of foreign policy or energy security.” Eight separate agencies have three months to weigh in, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Did you really think there was gonna be any other outcome?  Be real!  If BP got away with the Gulf spill what would make you think that any other outcome would happen?

Now ll we have to do is wait….and wait…..and then I can utter the four most beautiful words in the English language…..”I TOLD YOU SO”!

Drill Baby Drill (Will It Ever Cease?)

Before the prez made his much maligned African trip he gave a climate speech….which touched on coal fired plants, Keystone, emissions, and a partridge in a pear tree…..and after he was finished his laundry list the GOP was gearing up for their retort to his speech……and vasically, it was the same tried old dog whistle that they have been using for decades….Drill Baby drill.

The GOP response……

……….. less than a month after it was introduced, the House passed H.R. 2231, the Offshore Energy and Jobs Act, by a vote of 235 to 186. The bill reads like Big Oil’s Christmas list. It would open virtually all of the U.S. Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast off Southern California, and much of Alaska’s offshore space to new drilling; require the Obama administration to create a new Five-Year Plan for offshore operations; and generally perpetuate an energy agenda driven by climate deniers.

The Committee website describes the legislation as “a contrast to President Obama’s no-new-drilling, no-new-jobs plan.” But the truth in this statement ends with the word “contrast.” In fact, earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal described the offshore oil and gas industry under President Obama as “booming.”

Almost from the first day of this blog I have been writing about Drill Baby Drill…..and still NO one is listening……let me talk slowly so that the issue gets firmly implanted……

Drill Baby Drill is a dog whistle….it will NOT….let me say that again for those that are slower than others…….will NOT bring the price of gas down in any significant way…..

Let me ask the question for you so that no one hurts themselves trying to figure it out…….why not?

First…..NOW Pay Attention!  Oil is drilled on a lease…..the oil that comes out of the ground belongs to the company that drills it…..NOT the country.  Am I moving too fast for you?  The oil is then sold on the spot market by the company, not the country, and sold at whatever price the going rate is on that day.  If you think that the oil company will significantly lessen their profits because the oil is drilled in the US then you have moved beyond dense to stupid!

Second…..the Keystone…now here is a good one……what benefit will the pipeline do for the country…..the jobs created will be temporary with the exception of a few full time after completion.  The oil will belong to Canada, not the US and Canada will sell it to whoever they want and at the going rate…once again NO significant drop in the price of oil or gas……

But I see that the DLC has its mouthpiece out and pushing for the passing of the pipeline…….Harold Ford, Jr…….this from his piece in the Wall Street journal…..

… The president has announced that he will open more of U.S. federal land and offshore areas to oil exploration and development. This is an important step, but he needs to do more—specifically, he should reconsider his Keystone pipeline decision.

Despite several years of study and a favorable State Department analysis, the administration has rejected Keystone XL’s application for a construction permit. This pipeline could bring an additional 500,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to the U.S. Instead, the project is in limbo.  (The oil will be owned by the oil companies not the country)

Mr. Obama should also work with our leading energy companies instead of fighting them. Domestic energy companies contribute to our economy, support millions of American jobs and retirement accounts, and some, like Exxon Mobil, are investing in the energy solutions of tomorrow like fuel from algae. Yet the president continues to use them as his rhetorical foil. Calling for higher taxes may bring applause at partisan political events. But it won’t lower energy prices.  (DLC sole purpose is to see the corporate America gets more breaks and less taxes while average Americans suffer)

We can’t wave a magic wand to bring gasoline prices down. But increasing domestic crude oil development will reduce our reliance on energy from unstable parts of the world. That, and a healthy petroleum refining sector, will help mitigate price spikes that hurt our economy.  (More crap!  All oil will be sold on the spot market…prices are controlled there not by a healthy refining industry)

This from a guy that is on the payroll of large banking firms……..this is a guy who is part of the outrageous bonus program…where would you think his loyalties would lie?

This is typical of the bullshit spread by Clintonians and the DLC……..these twats are nothing by Repubs in Dem clothing……there biggest concern is the creation of wealth not the preservation of the “American Dream”……

Third…..you want cheaper gas?  NO! Really!  Is that what you want?

There is only ONE way for that to occur.  And none of the Right wing “Experts” will like the answer.  If you pea brains really want cheaper gas then I suggest that you consider the alternative.  Your dog whistle slogans will do nothing to achieve the one thing that we all desire.

As my grandfather use to say…..”wish in one hand and shit in the other and let me know which one fills up first”.

Wanna Talk XL—Again?

Any day now I expect the Prez to approve the Keystone XL deal.  Do you know why it is called Keystone XL?  (Pause here for the Google search)………there is already a Keystone pipeline…….the XL is for the expansion to make it LARGER.  As a matter of fact the existing Keystone is in the news as I type………

Newser) – Ten surviving “oiled ducks” and two dead ones have turned up following a pipeline leak in Arkansas, Exxon Mobil says. “I’m an animal lover, a wildlife lover, as probably most of the people here are,” says a local judge. “We don’t like to see that.” The air around the town of Mayflower smells like oil, the AP reports, and two front lawns have been soaked by the stuff. An Exxon rep says there’s “no indication” of health dangers, but the spill’s cause remains a mystery as Exxon workers clean up.

The company was fined in 2010 for a failure to inspect another part of the Pegasus oil line often enough, Reuters notes. As of yesterday, the company still hadn’t dug up the ground around the leak. Meanwhile, the disruption of the line, which runs from Patoka, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, continued to fuel debate over the Keystone XL pipeline. The Pegasus line transported oil similar to what the Keystone pipeline would carry, Bloomberg notes, and there’s controversy over whether this diluted bitumen is more corrosive than regular crude. Last year saw 364 US pipeline spills totaling 54,000 barrels. National Geographic has more photos of the latest spill.

That’s right, sports fans….the disaster occurring in Arkansas is part of the existing Keystone pipeline…….it is oil from the sands of Alberta that is polluting central Arkansas……got that?

The pipeline will hire many construction workers, if approved……but once finished those jobs will be gone.  The oil flowing through the completed pipeline does NOT belong to the US…..it is Canadian oil…..and the Canadians will sell it to the highest bidder….it will NOT make the US independent.

The political line is that the US will be the number one oil producing country in the world by 2020……the truth is that the oil companies will be the producers not the country…….it is a political game to claim otherwise…it is disingenuous…..

Then we have people like Pickens that is pushing nat gas……and is saying that this will make us more independent…….the truth there is that nat gas will fluctuate in price like oil and the will be no cheaper than any other form of fossil fuel……again the country will not be producing the gas…….companies will and companies will trade it, like oil, in the spot markets…..

As always…..there is only one way for the country to profit from oil production…..and NO one likes it……but if you want cheaper oil then there is only one way to achieve the price decrease…….

What About Those Gas Prices?

The GOP is reeling from the mass of bad PR they have gotten from the candidates unrealistic stances on contraception….so how do you change the subject?  GAS PRICES!

Gas prices are going up and up and of course it is election time and the opposition will make it all the president’s fault…..Mitt has promised two dollar a gallon gas when he is elected president….now sports fans….HE IS LYING!

For one, the president has little control over then price of gas……think Exxon at this point……will they give up profit to make Mitt happy?  And then there is the promise of more drilling domestically….good plan and it will take at least 5 years for that to take effect and there is NO guarantee that it will lessen the price of gas at US pumps……now at this point think Chevron……will they give up profits because the oil came from the US soil?

Let us not forget about speculation which has more to do with the price of oil than who is president….or who promises something they could NEVER deliver short of nationalization….now there is something to think about….

Could the price of gas come down?  Sure when the price of oil does.

But with all that in your head think about something else…..from USAToday:

Looking at your heating bills or gas prices, you may find it surprising that the United States is enjoying a mini oil boom. It’s producing more crude oil and, for the first time in decades, has become a net exporter of petroleum products such as jet fuel, heating oil and gasoline.

The U.S. exported more oil-based fuels than it imported in the first nine months of this year, making it likely that 2011 will be the first time since 1949 that the nation is a net exporter of such goods, primarily diesel.

That’s not all. The U.S. has reversed another decades-long trend. It began producing more crude oil in 2008 than the year before and accelerated that upswing 3% in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period in 2010. That production has helped reduce U.S. imports of crude oil by about 10% since 2006.

Read it!  The US has exported more oil than it imported!  Could that exported oil be used here in the good old US of A to keep the price of gas down?  At this point think Texaco…….profits are the common denominator……profits will lead the way and as long as that is the motivation there will be NO way to bring the price of gas down…..

Pain At The Pump

A lot of lip flapping going on and We all suffer from pain at the pump….we bitch and we moan and we drive down the driveway to pick up the morning paper……we are a country of addicts…..gas addicts!

one of my pages describes this…..lobotero.wordpress.com/will-the-addic… …..I wrote this about 4 years ago and it is all repeating itself as it has time after time…..

And then when things are offered up the attack machine goes into full swing….like to end all subsidies to oil companies…..

Obama has proposed eliminating subsidies to oil and gas companies, which the administration pegs at $4 billion. Republicans have argued that they are necessary to keep the energy industry competitive and encourage domestic oil exploration.

A Boehner spokesman quickly shot down the possibility that the speaker was moving closer to the president’s proposal.

“The speaker wants to increase the supply of American energy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and he is only interested in reforms that actually lower energy costs and create American jobs,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said. “Unfortunately, what the president has suggested so far would simply raise taxes and increase the price at the pump.”

Oil prices are controlled by speculation and there is an answer to that problem also…..

The Wall Street reform law enacted last year required the commission to impose so-called position limits, which would restrict the amount of oil that speculators could trade in the energy futures market. The law called for the tough new regulations to take effect by Jan. 22. The commission balked. Now, three months later, the price of gasoline has gone up 80-cents a gallon because of the commission’s hands-off approach to the markets it is supposed to regulate.

Only two of the five sitting commissioners support strong limits that the new Wall Street law envisioned. It takes three commissioners to adopt a new rule. The president, Sanders said, should insist that the law be enforced and demand the immediate resignation of commissioners who refuse to do their job.

You may not appreciate the financial reform bill that was signed into law last year, but there is a way to control the price of gas and to blame Obama ‘s war on subsidies as the reason for raising gas prices is just plain WRONG!

Even Goldman-Sachs has reported that the rise in gas prices is caused by speculators…..and to allow it to continue will bring any economic recovery to a grinding halt…..so to oppose any effort to get these speculators to cool down is NOT in the best interests of the country….

But a economist with  Platts and energy information group has said and he should know….

The tax breaks on oil are part of the endless discussion about how to tax an economic activity. Do you tax it at 0%? Do you tax it 100%? Or do you tax it in between? You want to tax it at the rate that provides the most money for the government while not inhibiting economic activity.

But that is not a subsidy. My demand for oil isn’t going to change one iota because of the changes that are under consideration, and therefore it won’t change the price of gasoline.

Oil companies will argue that the changes in the tax rate could change supply.  Now you could build some theoretical model that says, if the tax rate is changed, it MIGHT inhibit production, and therefore down the road, supplies would be less than they would be otherwise. Therefore, the price could be higher and my demand might be less. This is not as crazy as it sounds. If the rate on these forms of exploration went to 100%, obviously, no company would produce that oil, the overall market would tighten, and the price could go up. But that’s not in question; the administration is not proposing a 100% tax rate.

There you are…..we have an answer….now just DO IT!  You want to cut spending….then start here and prove that you Repubs are not anti middle class….just a thought!