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Oil company profits
rossowmn
Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
Are you sitting down? You'll be shocked (right!) to know -- are you ready for this? -- the big oil companies are beginning to report huge profit increases in the third quarter! Pshaw! Who would've guessed.
Irving, Texas-based Exxon said its profit was $5.68 billion, up about 56 percent from the third quarter last year. Royal Dutch/Shell, based in London and The Hague, said that its profit more than doubled, to $5.4 billion. Most other oil companies are reporting substantial third-quarter profit increases.
Who says there's no price gouging?
Irving, Texas-based Exxon said its profit was $5.68 billion, up about 56 percent from the third quarter last year. Royal Dutch/Shell, based in London and The Hague, said that its profit more than doubled, to $5.4 billion. Most other oil companies are reporting substantial third-quarter profit increases.
Who says there's no price gouging?
Comments
In defense of the price fixing and gouging the oil companies say they are a "for profit" business and have to show a reasonable profit to stay in business and provide an essential product to the public. Large profits are necessary for exploration for new sources of crude, improving and building new refineries and research and development of new energy sources. They also point out that the oil companies are owned by widows and orphans and others in the general public, so the profits benefit society at large.
All those reasons are perfectly reasonable, and I could buy into it, until I realize the oil companies are doing none of the above. The last oil refinery was built in the United States in 1976 (thirty-two years ago).
With profits of $123,000,000,000.00 on the books, it makes me wonder what the real profits are.
If they would drop the price I bet thier profits would be even greater.
Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it state: "Seperation of Church and State".
"Those who beat their guns into plow shares; will plow for those who don't."
"Isaiah 5:20 ?Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Rugster
"Toujours Pret"
All have had to be repaired or rebuilt after Charley [:p]
I will not buy from Shell though. They get thier crude from the Sudan.
Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it state: "Seperation of Church and State".
"Those who beat their guns into plow shares; will plow for those who don't."
"Isaiah 5:20 ?Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
the packer and stockyards act from way back them was to deal with this kind of problem but nobodys got the balls the take them on......oh well
I am burning e85 in my 99 suburban for .28 cents a gal less than reg gas and sofar cant tell much difference if any....piss on them i am going to help out myself and my fellow farmers buy burning corn and soy diesel.
Rugster all the shell station are out this way couple years ago all the station were connoco but are all shell station now foe what ever reason
I have learned that when the stuff hits the fan it is never evenly distributed.
Ignoring foreign petroleum companies like Shell and BP, the remaining "sisters" are publicly held companies which exist for no purpose other than to make money for those people who have invested in them. Oil companies do not exisit to provide a service like a public utility, they exisit in order to make people money, hopefully a lot of it. I can picture the next share holders meeting when the Chairman announces that the board has decided that the company is going to scale back operations and lower it profits (there by reducing the value of its stock) because it was proving to be too profitable, was earning too much money, and it was becoming bad for public relations. HAH! Those old guys (and a few women) would be run out of town on a rail in about 30 seconds by a mob a very PO'd share holders who'll glady pump $5 per gallon gas into their own cars when they see their fat dividend checks roll in.
"Nothing can ever be made 'idiot proof' because idiots are simply too clever"!
Mark T. Christian
If you want to share in the wealth...invest. Some of you are without realizing it. In the form of your 401K plans operated by your employers. Not all employee 401K plans are invested in your employer's stock only,...so most are invested in either treasury notes (Gov't Bond funds), index funds, or specialized stock funds.
Read the prospectus and you may find you are part owner of those Exxon profits....[:D]
"They're in front of us, they're behind us, they're to our left and to our right...they can't get away now."
Chesty Puller, Chosin Reservoir, Korea
SEMPER FI
Commercial enterprises use profits to expand their operations. Invest in R&D to develope new products. It is a fine balance to collect sufficient tax from corporations but not to shrink growth of corporations...so that they can hire and employees can pay payroll taxes. Employees should invest to reap a portion of the success/profit of those employers.[8D]
OK, now everybody...JUMP ON!![}:)]
"They're in front of us, they're behind us, they're to our left and to our right...they can't get away now."
Chesty Puller, Chosin Reservoir, Korea
SEMPER FI
For me investing is laying it all on the line in large sums of money which for me is buying land livestock and ect and making profit from my own labor and marketing skills in fact at the age of 37 i could sell all my assets and live quite well for quite some time but i will keep working and increase my assets until i deside to retire which hopefully will be quite a few millions of dollars which right now i am aways over a million now.
why not try to start your own oil company or ect? I can guarantee that if you look like you could start to be serious competition with one of these very large companys beit oil, a packing plant or ect ect they will destroy you in short order. think you can compete with billions of dollars......its a pretty serious situation when two three major players control a majority of any given industry.
but dont worry we farmers are slowly figuring out ways around these things
such as farmer owned cooperatives for ethanol plants and ect [:D]
gotta think big guys [:)]
Hey Mark them Beamers any good? might have to buy a couple when i retire[:D] until then i like that big green John Deere stuff [:D]
Don't do anything that I've allready done - That'd be just plain STOOOOOOPID.
____________________________________________________
I'm not apologizing, I am what I am
There is no compromising, I don't give a damn
Ozzy Osbourne - Lightning Strikes
AlleninAlaska
Delta Firearms & Supplies
http://www.galleryofguns.com
aglore@gci.net
____________________________________________________
I'm not apologizing, I am what I am
There is no compromising, I don't give a damn
Ozzy Osbourne - Lightning Strikes
[I'm a partner in an oilwell here in SoKal, and I love these recent royalties[8D]..]
Love them Pre-64's!!!!-Bob
"Nothing can ever be made 'idiot proof' because idiots are simply too clever"!
Mark T. Christian
Love them Pre-64's!!!!-Bob
Then late 70's and early 80's they actually encouraged drilling for oil on American soil.
Then in 1986-7 the bottom dropped out and thousands of oil field people lost their jobs, drilling rigs were sold for scrap metal and it was the end of drilling for oil on American soil.
Comes the 1990's and the radicial enviros combined with our own government started policies and pushes to discourage drilling for oil on American soil -- we all sat on our pocket books and were lulled to sleep by accepting the rate of imported oil into this country. So content that the soccer mom's with the yuppie generation started buying SUVs and other gas pigs. Driving a 4x4 that never left the city streets of AZ or other such places makes perfect sense[:o)]
Now the BLM and the Forest Service are running with or scared from the enviros and have basically adopted plans that are so burdensome that drilling for oil on the millions of acres of public land was economically out of the question. It is economical now, but the regulations and policies that we were so compliant to let happen during "import it all" era are preventing meaningful development of oil reserves on federal lands which:
1. Prevents drilling for oil on American soil
2. Makes us more reliant on foreign oil
3. prevents tidy non tax income to the government
This country has never had a long range energy plan. They have waffled back and forth. The government has reacted rather than being proacative to place a long range energy policy that will benefit and make sense even in the next 5 years!! Plus the politicians have let the enviros call the shots and frankly I do not think the radical ones live in the same world as the rest of us.
The independent wildcatters are nearly cut out of the picture now as they dried up and were bought out at bankruptcy auctions in the late 80's. Oil field equipment and personel are in short supply. Prices are going to surge. Companies are going to make huge profits as they know it will not be long before something happens and the profit of drilling and producing oil and gas will go in the toilet and they need to be sure they can withstand the next economic drought that will be imposed upon them.
Drill for oil on American soil. It can be done enviromentally friendly and our country benefits. It is also a direct blow against oil rich mideast terrorists.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
~Abraham Lincoln
There is plenty of crude being pumped out of the ground in the USA right now but all of it is being sold at market price: $50+ per barrel, just like every other barrel of crude sold on the world market. We already have a bunch of people up set that American oil companies are earning record profits so while it may sound nice to take those petro-dollars away from OPEC it still won't make anyone happy because the price will remain the same and the gripping about high prices will continue. Notice how the topic of this post was that the "big oil companies" profits were up and not Saudi Arabia is raking in huge money from record high crude oil prices? I'd just as soon suck the rest of the worlds oil dry (even if we have to pay premium prices to do it) and retain our own domestic supplies of oil for real shortages and stratigic needs. The time will come someday when the worlds big oil tank gauge reads EMPTY and I say let everyone else run out first!
"Nothing can ever be made 'idiot proof' because idiots are simply too clever"!
Mark T. Christian
While folks like Mark and Hangfire gloat over their stocks millions of people just like me are having to decide between groceries, gas to get to work and heating fuel for our houses, thanks alot people, I hope you do well with your stocks.
One more thing, about that truck I bought, anything less than a 4X4 is useless for me, I had to have it and the gas price has gone up $0.30 cents I bought that and is still going up[:(!]
____________________________________________________
I'm not apologizing, I am what I am
There is no compromising, I don't give a damn
Ozzy Osbourne - Lightning Strikes
since my wife is home on bed rest i have to drive 60 miles a day just to get my kids to and from school 5 days a week and that doesnt account for the other driving i have to do to conduct my business. my net worth is in the land,cattle and machinery. i make it with my own blood sweat and tears not off the backs of somebody else....which is why i get so pissed when this country allows a given industry to become so concetrated.
I am big on bio fuel because it opens of a mrkt for me to tap into but some here think farmers should just be peons i guess....i can assure you that when farmers make money they spend it which would be a big boom for this economy and put people back to work.
I supect that a lot of people will be pretty cold and hungry this winter with not enough money to pay for heat diesel fuel that i use in my tractor which is the same stuff if you use heating oil to heat with is 1.80-1.89/ gal and propane if you use that to heat with is 1.28 last i got for grain drying and hell we are not even into winter yet.also would guess quite a few homes will burn down this winter with people trying to heat with wood stoves and other thing not up to par trying to keep from freezing!
Damn glad i have elc heat
PS I suspect these high of energy costs will be the down fall of the US ecomony. we use way to much energy/day and at these prices it wont be long........
Love them Pre-64's!!!!-Bob
you and me are kinda the same then, i borrow 6 figures each year for operating money for farming and ranching....thats what i am talking about laying it all on the line each year....thats cool you found oil on your own land yourself, wish i was sitting on a pool of oil now[:D] could be though. looking at the old abstracts for my land many mnay years ago a company had bought the oil rights so somebody long time ago thought there was oil under here. i think there is oil under me buts its to deep to go after
I know few years ago they was doing "whats that called when they drop heavy wieght on ground with a truck and listen to sound waves that come back looking for oil cant think of the name right now!
I like it much. All other things have increased proportinatly. Look at
movie ticket prices from 30 years ago, meat, milk, bread, cars, guns,
insurance, and the likes. Also look at wages from 30 years ago, and now
adding hospial benifits to workers with little worker costs for it, guess why gas ALSO went up. Also check out the newer enviornmental strangle hold on refineries.
In the citrus world here in Kali we have what we call the "June Drop". Given the extremes in temperature during that month, if we get a couple hundred plus days after months of nothing above 70, all the blossoms drop and there is no crop that year....period. No income at all, but the groves still have to be maintained.
Our wells are what they call stripper wells, meaning they are shallow[1800 ft] and low producers. The local geology suggests there is big production at 3600 ft, but man thats 6 digits just to take a chance.Don't have that kind of bucks for that kind of gamble.If I can get a driller to share the risk for a roality,I'd go for it.
Love them Pre-64's!!!!-Bob
I truly hope that we don't dip into the strategic oil reserve with the idea we have to save soccer mom's from having to pay too much to fill their SUV.
Back in my kid hauling family days, we had mini-vans that got over 25 mpg regularly and on the open road pushing 30mpg. These honkin' SUV's get a respectable 10-14mpg. But the yuppies would not be caught dead in a Minivan!! Oh no!! How embarrassing!
[B)]
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
~Abraham Lincoln
1-Powder
2-Patch
3-Ball
4-Remove the Rod
5-Do Not Forget the Cap.
1-Powder
2-Patch
3-Ball
4-Remove the Rod
5-Do Not Forget the Cap.
Liberal compassion inhibits progress.........think Republican and prosper!