Oil is purchased months and months in advance. Then it gets shipped to a refinery to be turned into gasoline and other petroleum products. Which of course means the gas you are using today was purchased maybe a year ago and the cost to get it, before refining, doesn't reflect the cost of oil today. That I understand. Here is where I believe the bullshit and scamming begin.
Let's say gas is $1.17 CDN a litre today. There is a crisis in some middle eastern country. The price of oil shoots up. At the same time the price of gas shoots up 1-3 cents a litre. The gas companies say it is because the cost of oil went up.
A month later the price of oil is down as much as it shot up. The price of gas either doesn't change or only drops 1 cent or less a litre. The gas companies say it is because the price of oil today doesn't reflect the price it was when they purchased it to make the gas selling today. What the hell?
It really sounds like they are pulling a scam. They always seem to raise the price when oil goes up but never drop it when oil goes down. They use the current price of oil as a reason to raise it but never to lower it.
Yeah, it definitely sounds like they are scamming us, and the government lets it happen.
I've always thought that oil companies raise the prices because everyone is using their product, and why not? Then when oil is scarce, they raise their prices to cover the shortfall. They're covered both ways.
ReplyDeleteThe way they explain it just sounds scammy to me. The new cost isn't reflected in the gas price because the oil was bought at the old price yet when oil goes up they pump up the price right away.
ReplyDeleteIt kind of reminds me of the banks whining about losses and cutting tellers while at the same time profits were at an all time high.
You can't have it both ways ... unless of course you are lying.
They are definitely scamming us! Why do you think that the oil companies are posting record profits every freaking quarter?
ReplyDeleteYeah. It pisses me off because the Government set up a Public Utilities Board in Nova Scotia which is supposed to make things on the up and up. Odds are some of the extra cash made its way into the PUBs pocket so they turn a blind eye.
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