Exploring Why Gas and Oil are So Expensive

Stop me if I'm wrong here, but all this talk about the high price of oil really gets me hot under the collar. OK, so what does it come down to here? Man, I remember when a $20 bill would fill up your tank and buy you a soda and a pack of smokes. Now you need a fricken second job just to make enough money to drive to your first job. What is the deal here?

In 2003, just five years ago, the price of oil was less than $30 a barrel. As of this week oil was around $101 dollars a barrel. That's over triple the 2003 numbers. Triple, are you kidding me, if my 401K had tripled in that time maybe I wouldn't be so bent out of shape about this thing, do you hear me out there.

But what options to do we have right? It's either pay for the gas or walk, or take the bus, or ride a bike or something. I don't know about you folks but I love to drive my car, it's freedom, yeah it's expensive but I love driving to work, sipping my coffee, and listening to the radio. Some days that is the only "me" time I get, and how do you put a price tag on that? So I don't want to get rid of my car and I don't want to pay the price for gas, what do I do? I am sure many of you out there are in the same fix I am, what are you gonna do? I could car pool, but that totally destroys the point of having "me" time. I could get a hybrid car, but let's face it, for the money they are charging, versus the price of gas and how long the car will last; it's not going to save you that much, if any money. No don't get me wrong here, I have no problem driving a hybrid, or electric, or hydrogen car. But bring 'em down in price so I can afford something like that, then I will drive it. You may say, ethanol is the answer, ethanol will save us. Don't get me started on ethanol, that's another topic that really gets me hot under the collar.

So until we get some more economical alternatives I need cheaper gas. So going back to oil after my little tangent, why is gas so expensive? Lots of things are involved, production cost, environmental standards, taxes, but it all goes back to the price of oil. For years no one really cared how much a barrel of oil cost but now I beat most of you look at least every once and awhile to see what the price of oil is doing. With oil sitting over $100 dollars a barrel and no relief in sight going into summer gas is going to get more and more expensive.

All the research I have been able to do seems to say that we have plenty of oil reserves for the next forty years or so. Forty years? What are you, fricken kidding me? Why aren't we worried about this? If we ran out of oil tomorrow our world would collapse, I mean complete and utter chaos would break out. So we have two options here. One, we are going to run out of oil and no one seems to care. Or two, we are not going to run out of oil and someone knows something we don't.

Now I am not one to go off spouting conspiracy theories but seriously do the research, you people all have the internet. Look at declared oil reserves by year out there. Look at 1988 specifically, there is a huge jump in some countries declared oil reserves between 87 and 88, I mean over double the previous year jump. How does that happen? You doubled your oil in a year, now that's more than just a change in accounting practices. Also, look at the numbers, if we are using so much oil how are these reserves not going down steadily. Most seem to stay the same or go up every year. What's that about? Now I am not a scientist, or geologist, or economist, I'm just a guy with a computer and a search engine. Now I know that oil production is expensive and that is part of the cost we have but look at these net income numbers for 2007:

Exxon- 40 billion dollars

Chevron- 18.7 billion dollars

Conoco- 11.9 billion dollars

BP Amoco- 20.8 billion dollars

If oil production is so expensive then most of what we are paying at the pump would be going to oil production but it obviously is going right into the pockets of the oil companies. Think about it, do some research, be educated.