Oil & Gas

[Quest4Less]

Perhaps a little naive but...

Why can't the Canadian Government take back Petro Canada, build it's own refineries, and sell gas for any price it wanted - say 50 cents / litre?

Apparently Canada may have as much (or more) oil then Saudi Arabia.

Cut out the rich oil barons and keep all the money? Use it to build roads, improve public transport.... etc...??

Best of all say "Fu*k you" to OPEC....

Why not????

 

[Keebler Elf]

I thought people wanted the gov't to get out of business ventures? I always used to hear people railing on the gov't for owning Petro Can, so they divested. Now we want them to take it back???

Besides, all we'd be doing is hooking people even more on cheap gasoline. Instead of trying to encourage alternate fuels, more fuel-efficient cars, conservative, etc.

 

[lickrolaine]

The cost of production for petroleum,in Alberta,is very high per litre.The tar sands only are profitable when fuel prices are high,when prices are low,they stop production,period.If fuel prices stay high and go higher,Kline is a hero!Maybe it is time more then nat gas and petroleum flowed east,like maybe some money too,lol.As a Canadian I feel we all have some sort of ownership to this nat resource? Oh no here we go again,"let those bastards in the east ride bicycles,and freeze in the dark!

 

[Goober Mcfly]

Not to mention a little thing called the "free market economy".

 

[Weekly]

Remember when the Ontario government sold Suncor a few years back in the 90s. They could have paid off the debt if they had kept those shares. I think Ottawa has more control at the pumps than people realize with or without an oil co. stake.

 

[Kommander1975]

Cut out the rich oil barons and keep all the money? Use it to build roads, improve public transport.... etc...??

Best of all say "Fu*k you" to OPEC....

Why not????

You are naive if you still don't know that the canadian gov't charges 44% tax on every liter of gasoline, and even when we are having our blood sucked they refuse to lower it.

Why are they going to refine oil themselves when the saudis do it for them and they still make big bucks $$$ ?

 

[Cardinal Fang]

Perhaps a little naive but...

Why can't the Canadian Government take back Petro Canada, build it's own refineries, and sell gas for any price it wanted - say 50 cents / litre?

Why would you sell it at "50 cents/litre" when you can sell it on the open market for far more?

 

[oldjones]

Hope you put your hardhat on as soon as you pressed submit Post. Curious where you came by the idea that the government, anymore than any other business owner, could sell gas for "any price it wante, say 50¢ a liter".

If it prices below cost, any business, even government-owned, will have to dip into a pot of money somewhere to make up the difference. Like they say about how you make a small fortune selling books: start w/ a large fortune. The governments fortune is large, as large as the extra taxes you must want to pay so your neighbours can fill their SUVs w/ 50¢ a liter gas. How large is that fortune?

I can't speak to the wisdom of buying back PetroCan—though I never thought they should sell it; it was making money for them—but if they're raising taxes, I'd raise the GST on all but the really stingy econocars, and treble the taxes on the gas they guzzle.

At $2 a liter maybe we'd at last see more than one person per car idling up the DVP or out the Gardiner at 5PM. Hey split two ways you're even, four ways, you'd be doing better than good ol' buck a liter gas. And think of all the buses and streetcars and Go trains and windturbines that fortune might buy. 'Cause I bet it'll take more than $2 gas to get people to see their cars are the problem.

 

[Meister]

Hope you put your hardhat on as soon as you pressed submit Post. Curious where you came by the idea that the government, anymore than any other business owner, could sell gas for "any price it wante, say 50¢ a liter".

If it prices below cost, any business, even government-owned, will have to dip into a pot of money somewhere to make up the difference. Like they say about how you make a small fortune selling books: start w/ a large fortune. The governments fortune is large, as large as the extra taxes you must want to pay so your neighbours can fill their SUVs w/ 50¢ a liter gas. How large is that fortune?

I guess the Venezuelans must be really dumb, because you can buy gas there at 12 cents/litre.

 

[johnhenrygalt]

Perhaps a little naive but...

Why can't the Canadian Government take back Petro Canada, build it's own refineries, and sell gas for any price it wanted - say 50 cents / litre?

Apparently Canada may have as much (or more) oil then Saudi Arabia.

Cut out the rich oil barons and keep all the money? Use it to build roads, improve public transport.... etc...??

Best of all say "Fu*k you" to OPEC....

Why not????

Section 92A of the Constitution Act (formerly the BNA Act) places jurisdiction over non-renewable natural resources in the hands of the Provinces, not the federal Parliament. Without the cooperation of the provincial government of Alberta, it would be very difficult for the federal Parliament to create a "made in Canada" gasoline price; and for political reasons, a second Trudeauesque "NEP" is not an option.

 

[oldjones]

I guess the Venezuelans must be really dumb, because you can buy gas there at 12 cents/litre.

And it will cost you how much to driive down there and fill up? Venezuela's sitting on top of the stuff, like parts of Alberta, which is about as far away.
BTW isn't V's neighbour Equador having some pretty serious civil disorder because the government proposed selling gas at world price instead of subsidizing it at under price?
Your gov't can sell it's oil at the cost of getting it to the pumps and make not a cent. But the taxes they now take from each liter would have to come from somewhere, and the only place is your pocket and mine. And if they're selling to you at cost, they're not selling to the Americans for a profit (nor are they taking profits from millionaire Canadians who'sd also be buying at cost) so that money too has to be made up somewhere. Taxes.
Taxes come from everyone. I don't see any upside for the population as a whole being taxed so you or anyone can have cheap gas. Given that the health cost of cars and their pollution, and their death rates are worse than, tobacco, worse than handguns, worse than heroin, I'd say it's time the taxes on gas went up.

 

[Meister]

I don't see any upside for the population as a whole being taxed so you or anyone can have cheap gas.

I agree, hence my comment that the Venezuelans must be dumb.

 

[WhOiSyOdAdDy?]

Looks like Alberta will have surplus larger than $7Billion... and it looks like it will not be long before oil tops $100 per barrel!

I think we should prepare for a nice, long recession... people need gas and will have to cut back in other areas of spending.. while the cost of all good must rise as a result of significantly higher fuel prices. the same thing will happen in the usa... affecting our exports and jobs here... I do not see a bright future.

 

[lickrolaine]

Looks like Alberta will have surplus larger than $7Billion... and it looks like it will not be long before oil tops $100 per barrel!

I think we should prepare for a nice, long recession... people need gas and will have to cut back in other areas of spending.. while the cost of all good must rise as a result of significantly higher fuel prices. the same thing will happen in the usa... affecting our exports and jobs here... I do not see a bright future.

The same statement was made in 1973-4 when the USA had a fuel crisis.We can only hope we get the same ride for the next 30 years that we got then,lol!
Remember when they came here with their 50 gallon barrels to buy gas,lol,they had odd and even days (license plates,or "tags") when they could fill up.The most unsettling part was when the newscasters did a report from the interstates on Sundays,with no traffic,cause all the toll roads were closed that day!Try that shit today and you would have a big problem,lmao!

 

[baltimoron]

Bill Maher joke

This reminds me of a Bill Maher joke on complaints about gas prices.

He was talking about how much people pay for a gallon of other stuff. Considering that a gallon of gas is a necessity, which gets you where you need to go, how much do you pay for a gallon of perrier? And a gallon of Starbucks is, like, a million dollars....

 

[strange1]

...If I wanna buy a new house I gotta pay an extra $200,000 more than I did 2 years ago! ...

Damn, Where do you live?

 

[Fork Master]

Peak Oil is coming soon and we`re all doomed but who I blame are people in urban centres sucking up all the gas when they should be on Transit.

Here`s my post from last year about "My TTC Subway Plans", I`ve made modifications since then,

https://terb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67499

 

[anon1]

I read somewhere recently that one third of the current price of oil is due to speculators. It's oil futures that are being traded, not oil itself. Commodities traders are bidding up the price of oil and making a killing, all out of OUR pockets.

 

[oldjones]

I read somewhere recently that one third of the current price of oil is due to speculators. It's oil futures that are being traded, not oil itself. Commodities traders are bidding up the price of oil and making a killing, all out of OUR pockets.

You'll have to explain that. If twelve people want to buy a thing, it'll get sold to the highest bidder won't it? Now if the highest bidder says "hey guys, I've decided to sell what I just bought, start bidding", there's nothing wrong with that is there? The other eleven people don't have to bid at all, in which case Mr. Lucky either keeps what he bought, or begs them to buy it below his cost. Or the other bidders just keep on raising the price beyond what he paid. As if he hadn't bid and bought at all. What's wrong with this picture; how would you fix it?

The only thing that's jacking up the price here is the number of people who want the stuff. Insulate your house better, take transit, get everyone you know to do likewise and watch the price of oil go down.

You might have a case if you were complaining about oil barons holding the stuff off the market to make an artificial shortage and raise the price. But since they ain't makin' any new oil, I think we'd best be grateful someone's sensible enough to ration the stuff.

High prices make a market for expensive Alberta crude and postpone the day when there just isn't the supply to meet the demand. Lower the price; use it up faster; run out sooner.

 

[tboy]

Jones: Sorry dude, but you're wrong about your "supply and demand" comment. Sure, the current situation where china has increased the demand on the product accounts for some of the increase but speculators (I forget which show it was on) account for about 30% of the price of oil, gas and other petroleum based commodities.

IMHO this is artificially increasing the cost of an essential product.

Personally I don't think any speculation should be allowed to occur on food, water, petroleum, or other essential products or services.

Just think: ontario alone produces enough milk to supply just about the whole country. In total, Canada produces enough milk for every undernourished country in the world. The only reason we don't pay 40 cents for 3 bags of milk is because of the purchase, and subsequent dumping, of millions of gallons of milk by our wonderful government.

BTW: I forget what the exact number was but it was advertised that of the 44% taxes on a litre of gas, less than 1/10th of 1% goes back into roads, research or ?? relating to the transportation area.