Tag Archive | "price-gouging"
A Yogi Berra moment in oil prices
10-16-09 by dugan Oil prices hit another record for the year today, at over $78 dollars for each 42-gallon barrel in futures markets. That’s well over double the late 2008 low of 32 dollars a barrel. Here are the reasons given in various news stories: Dropping dollar, threats to Nigerian oil fields, a jump [...]
Continue reading...Goldman Sachs’ oil-rig loophole
Thursday, September 10, 2009
09-10-09 by dugan Who knew that investment giant Goldman Sachs was in the oil business? I’m picturing top execs earning their tens-of-millions bonuses in hard hats and oil-streaked yellow overalls. The news is part of an otherwise depressing Wall Street Journal story on how hard, and successfully, the financial industry is lobbying against regulations [...]
Continue reading...Who’s killing the U.S. dollar?
Friday, August 28, 2009
08-28-09 by dugan Did you hear the one about how the Bush administration used the wrong calculations last year when it declared that it wasn’t financial speculation causing the huge oil spike price? It’s one of many newsworthy punchlines of a strong new study that describes how government handed our energy markets over to [...]
Continue reading...Oil Price Spikes As Oil Profits Skid
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Oil Price Spike, As Exxon And Others’ Profit Skids, Shows Potential For New Economy-Killing Energy Roller Coaster, Says Consumer Watchdog Profit Reports Offer More Proof That Oil Prices Are Disconnected From Actual Petroleum CONTACT: Judy Dugan, July 30, 2009 Santa Monica, CA — On the same day that Exxon Mobil reported a second quarter profit [...]
Continue reading...Big about-face on speculation
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
7-28-09 by dugan Last fall, the Bush administration said all that business with oil hitting $147 a barrel and gasoline at over $4.00 a gallon was just supply and demand at work. Today–big oops! The Obama administration, politely calling the report’s data "deeply flawed," said it will issue a revised report in September saying [...]
Continue reading...Hot fuel fix rises from the dead
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
7-21-09 by dugan Is it hot out? Well, so’s your gasoline. You’re losing a few cents a gallon each time you fill up at the pump. And no, with today’s insulated underground tanks, you can’t get cooler fuel in the morning. You just have to pay, while the dealer and oil companies reap [...]
Continue reading...Goldman Sachs’ oil revival
Monday, July 13, 2009
7-13-09 by dugan Investment bank Goldman Sachs is about to report an eye-popping profit increase, leaving the rest of the economy in the dust. That should remind us of Goldman’s key role in the energy-price bubble that brought us $4.11 a gallon gasoline last summer, and brought Goldman a black-gold rush of profits. It’s a [...]
Continue reading...Walk the walk on speculation
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Gary Gensler made news today by repeating some earlier pledges to get speculative oil markets under control. He has to act soon. If oil prices can hit $70 a barrel in this economy, they'll shoot back up to $140 a barrel, with $4-a-gallon gasoline, at the slightest encouragement.
Continue reading...Reality check on oil prices
Monday, June 22, 2009
6-22-09 Nothing changed in the real world today–economy still shrinking, gasoline consumption near 10-year lows. But speculators who doubled the price of crude oil and sent prices at the pump shooting up got some kind of extraterrestrial message today. The price of crude oil dropped about $2.50 a barrel, to around $67, and gasoline started [...]
Continue reading...Price roller coaster redux
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
06-09-09 by dugan Oil prices hitting close to $70 a barrel today are a speculator’s paradise. Their party, of course, is being paid for by consumers at the pump and struggling businesses. Gasoline is averaging $2.62 a gallon nationally and California is within a dime of $3.00 at the pump. Haven’t we been here before? [...]
Continue reading...Gas Up While Demand Down
Friday, May 22, 2009
‘Optimism’ Is Driving Energy Prices, Consumers Will Suffer The Memorial Day Hangover, Says Consumer Watchdog Oil, Gas Prices Rising Again At Record Clip For Holiday, Despite Oversupply, Low Demand, Says Group Washington, D.C. — The price of regular gasoline at the pump has shot up 30 cents a gallon nationally in the last month and [...]
Continue reading...Exxon 1st Qtr Profit More Normal
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Exxon Profit at 2003-04 Levels ‘Shows What Normal Looks Like,’ Says Consumer Group Santa Monica, CA — Exxon Mobil’s first quarter profit of $4.55 billion dollars is small only by comparison to the last six years of nearly continuous profit records, said Consumer Watchdog. Its first quarter profit is more than $1 billion above what [...]
Continue reading...Price-fixing tales
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
04-07-09 by dugan What OilWatchdog usually worries about is what refiners do to keep fuel prices higher than they should be, and lately I’ve been studying the paucity of real-time operational information that is available to the public (as opposed to the mountains of pricing and supply data available to those with unlimited bucks to [...]
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- "Gas Pain" At Pump and Smokestack
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- Rob: I was not addressing speculation. I was addressing...
- Judy Dugan: Here is an authoritative study by Houston's James ...
Friday, October 16, 2009
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