Yahoo, $2.99 gas price seen tonight...

[iconoclast59]

Three years ago, I never thought I'd be ecstatic about getting gas for $2.87 a gallon!

BD, regarding your dilemma...wouldn't it be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for a gas station to post a sticker indicating that they can assist the disabled, then turn around and refuse to do so, or charge extra as your friend Moses is doing? I wonder what IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan would have to say about this. :?:

[Danno]

If you figure a cost of $80 per barrel that equals a cost of about $1.90 per gallon for the cost of the crude out of the ground. Add refiner, transportation, marketing, retail profit costs of about $.55 cents per gallon and taxes of about $.47 per gallon and the price is closer to $2.92 per gallon. Oh, I forgot the special formulation for Chicago so add a few more cents and you get $3.00 a gallon.

The $1.90 per gallon already has all the costs built into it.... or you looking to double your profits?
Todays closing 10/15/2008 (Nymex Crude Future), oil price dropped to $73.23. That equates a gallon of gas should be "about" $1.98 here in Waukegan. This $1.98 includes the NORMAL cost of living increase over the past 6 months. About 6 months ago, when oil was just under $80 a barrel, gas here was $1.79 gallon. (All prices quoted are for Regular grade, not Premium)

And DANNO, the pump price always includes all the extraction, raw oil delivery, refineing, raw gas delivery and resale costs, but not you pumping your own fuel. The oil industry has to cut costs somewhere.

A barrel of CRUDE OIL is 42 gallons. $80.00 for a barrel of CRUDE OIL divided by 42 equals $1.904 per gallon of CRUDE OIL. Adding the taxes of $0.47 per gallon to that figure comes to $2.374 per gallon without any refining or transportation costs. Using those figures (even accounting for different tax rates) it would seem that those folks in Texas who are selling gasoline at $2.25 a gallon are paying their customers to buy their gasoline. What am I missing?

A barrel of CRUDE OIL only yields about 20 gallons of gasoline. The stuff left over from refining CRUDE OIL into gasoline is not discarded; rather it is turned into various lubricating oils, other types of fuels, plastics, etc. You can't just divide 80 by 42 to get the cost of raw materials.

What I wrote was from a so called "expert" in the field. ( <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.gravmag.com/oil3.html">http://www.gravmag.com/oil3.html</a><!-- m --> ) I knew it was more complex than that but I went with this "expert" opinion because it was rather easy to understand. Of course other products that are derived from the remaining 53.6% (I used 19.5 gallons of gasoline per barrel of crude from the article) of the crude oil are relevant but to take those into consideration in detail would have required a page and a half of writing. Also, because those non-gasoline products, such as fuel oil, jet fuel, kerosene, asphalt, etc do have value in proportion to the cost of the crude oil they offset the total cost to a good degree. In other words, while each gallon of Crude only produces 46.4% of a gallon of gasoline the remining 53.6% has a value proportional to the initial value of the crude so it can be discounted for simplicity sake.

Probably a more accurate way would be to use a percentage proportional to the totality of the value of all the end products of the refining process rather than a percentage of a given volume to use to divide the per gallon cost by while accounting for the (approximate) 4% processing gain due to decreasing density thus increase in volume of the refined products.

[Blackdiamond]

Iconoclast, I told an Alderman about it and nothing was done. I didn't know I should have contacted Lisan Madigan's office. This happened last year. I'm going to go there again and see what happens. I'll let you know.

[Guest]

No matter what way you want to look at it, we are being ripped off at the pumps.
Oil @ $70 should equate to about $1.80 gallon of gas, but we're currently at $2.80.

[fedupinwaukegan]

I saw $2.06 today. Surely, it'll will go below $2 soon.

[MissMia]

I saw 1.99 a gal. here in the B.Park/Zion area along Sheridan Rd. yesterday.

[guest300]

I paid $1.98 over the weekend at Russell Rd. Don't get too used to the low prices. OPEC will surely cut production again in order to tighten supply and subsequently raise prices. Oil producing countries based budgets, program funding, etc. on the high prices they all came to love and will do what it takes to move prices in an upward direction again.

[Penguin40]

I just filled up at Citgo across from Thortons at $1.93 a gallon. Thorton's was $1.96.

[yhave1]

Yahoo. $1.85 gas price on Sheridan and Beach today.