Fill 'er Up

My family started in the oil business in the 1930s with filling stations and then as an executive with one of the "Seven Sisters" of the 1950s. He hired and mentored several of the executives of Gulf Oil. In the 1980s, companies I was involved in did some work in the oil patch in Oklahoma and I watched a once good friend from church go belly up by drilling a set of wells when oil was $20 a barrel and when the first came in, the price was $12 and that $8 differential was the turning point between profit and loss. He capped the wells as his obligations were tied to the price per barrel and unfortunately for him, it was just under $20 so each barrel that came out was costing him money.

In the middle 80s I had a business relationship with a Dallas wildcatter who was a fellow of no value whatsoever other than being a good husband and father but with the business morals of a snake. He swindled some poor farmer out of mineral rights as a "land man" - and if you don't know what this is, it is a guy who scowers the countryside buying up mineral rights...short form for you get to plow and graze on the surface but we own everything under 3 feet. Anyway, he hit "Sweetwater" and made a fortune only to loose it all because he knew nothing other than to be a land man.

In short, I've seen gas wars, oil fields and personal gain and loss.

Gas is moving to $4 a gallon. It will go higher. There is nothing that keeps prices at this level other than speculators who have future prices at a cost that sets the price at this level. This isn't supply and demand. It has nothing to do with supply and demand. The weak dollar makes it easier and republicans in congress make it easier because they assign it off to oil drilling moratoriums in the Gulf and on the North Slope. Ahhh if only....well the "if only" is that easing either would make no effect on anything short term and only marginally long term and only if speculator "A" who bought the oil at $110 for delivery in July (and that is the current July price) figures wrongly that the Saudi government will be up in flames and cut production, well...you figure it out.

This is all stupid speculation. It is no one's fault. It is everyone's fault and the politicians are going to attempt to manipulate the facts to their own gain and we will suffer from the ignorance they shove on us.