Federal tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.3 cents per gallon on diesel. These amounts have remained unchanged since 1993.

Gas in 1993 was 1.09 per gallon and diesel in 1994 was 1.11 a gallon.

As a percentage, the Feds are taking less.

 

Texan, you said.I think this is really a calculated move by the oil producers. Yes, it would cost a great deal of money to build new refining capacity. The problem is that increased capacity would lower prices. Where is the incentive to an oil company to do that? They have intentionally kept production capacity low to get prices up. If I owned a refinery, of course, I would do the same thing.

I call Removed by Admin: inappropriate comment for a family site, see Guidelines on the katrina issue leading to the disparity between gas and diesel. The switch took place long before that. I bought my F250 in November of 03, and diesel prices leapfrogged gas about a month later and have been higher ever since. This was also well before low sulfur reformulation was any kind of issue. I personally think the oil companies are punishing me for making the switch to diesel.

 

Well in good 'ol NY we are paying on avg. 3.25 a gallon for diesel, and the average for reg. unleading is in the 3.15 range. Yesterday I was very excited because I filled up at 3.17.

 

It is also called global economy, supply and demand of emerging nations….the requirement has gone up ten fold over the past five years from China alone, (see texan2004) No new refineries, then no need to pump more from the ground, makes the price rise……nothing weird about it at all. We may not like it …but it is a fact.

 

Diesel is about 25 cents cheaper here in Maui Hawai'i.

 

Now that is nice.

 

I will stand corrected if I am wrong...But if the 1.09 and 1.11 a gallon you refer to is the total "cost" of that gallon then that would not be all "profit"....only a small percentage of it would be and last I read the oil companies only make about 7 percent profit per gallon. Based on the average per gallon price of diesel in my area (which is 2.75) 7 percent of that would be about 19.3 cents per gallon which is 5 cents more money per gallon the government is getting then the oil companies are.

Also if you back up to the time you are talking about when diesel was 1.11/gallon that would have been approximately 8 cents for the oil companies (profit) versus the 24.3 cents per gallon the feds were taking.


Not trying to argue about it cause the price could be 6 dollars a gallon and I'll still be driving my truck. Also don't have any real documentation in my possession stating all the profit the oil companies have gotten has been 7 percent (I just remember reading it in a few places). But if you are comparing the total cost of a gallon of fuel to the percentage the government takes then I would think that would not give very accurate results since 100 percent of the cost a gallon of fuel is not all profit.

I will keep looking for more information (cause I'm curious)...If anyone has any official figures (profits info for oil companies...etc...)please let me know where to find them.

 

We will see 4.00 by the next year, then it will settle back down to 3.20/3.40 and we will all be happy....just like we used to get upset at 2.85 and then….. when it went down to 2.20 we were thrilled...feel like you are being programmed slowly.

 

Hope your wrong. E85 and Bio may help keep that from happening.

 

I think we are slowly being brought into "their" reality....we will be at 3.50 to 4.80 for a VERY long time to come ...

 

Biodiesel and E85 will become competitve once the infrastructure is in place. This stuff can't be shipped using exisitng pipleines for a number of reasons, one being that it will eat through the existing pump seals and valve packings. There are also segregation (lack of tankage) and contamination problems shipping on exisitng pipelines. Give it time folks. This is not a one or two variable problem. It's far more complicated than most understand but rest assured that market forces will straighten this all out over the long haul. It just may take a few years. Whatever your feeling about this are, it's nothing like the 70's. We can still by fuel any day we want and adjusted for inflation, we are still paying less than we did then.

 

This is true in many industries. Things seem simple to the layman but, they do not have exposure to the knowledge base to foresee the zillion other items that can be impacted by change.

In my business, the simplest modification can alter an entire design.

 

I usually try to stay out discussions on this topic since I am biased (look at the screen name).

Here is a useful link.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp