What are the factors that influence the petrol price?

Question

What are the factors that influence the petrol price?

Answer 1

Many say is supply and demand must is not really the case.

there are more politiacl reasons for example threat from terrost attacking oil pipe lines, war with Iran(Iran is the 4th largest oil producer in the world) hugo chavez threatens to america to cut oil export to america.

All these cause tension which causes rising oil cost

Answer 2

You can blame it all on "Supply  and demand" for oil  in this developing new world we live in. 3rd world nations are growing in information, technology , and the new jobs,that brings to people They are becoming economically better off like never before. As peoples income increases, the demand  for things  like cars  and more energy are on the rise, thus increasing  the demand  for oil  to fuel  them. It  is not just America.. OPEC nations will sell at top dollar  to anyone  who has  the cash.. It is about a profit..Its business.. Oil is highly in demand by more than just the few now, and great profits are ready to be made.

Any smart business man in oil today,  will jump at this chance to take  the money and run..

Answer 3

politics

Answer 4

The factors which I think are most relevant are refinery capacity, futures market (speculation), supply and demand, bio-fuels production costs(government subsidies), and state and local taxes.

There are some other factors like gasoline formula’s and transportation costs of refined gas to gas-stations that are going up, because the cost of gasoline is going up. I remember in 2000 when the price 0f a gallon was just below 2 dollars per gallon. I thought this was highway robbery at the time.

It is like the inverse to the rocket problem. As the rocket uses its fuel, it becomes lighter and increases it velocity given a constant thrust. The cost of transportation does not become cheaper as the truck uses gasoline, because the price of gasoline has risen so high it offsets any fuel savings despite of weight loss.

Answer 5

It affects every thing .... It could drive us into a deep recession...

Answer 6

We expect a given amount of fuel to be available to supply consumers, and buy (import) to keep the tanks half full. If we see that the tanks are more than half full, we lower prices to sell more. If the tank is below half, we raise the price to try to ensure we will have enough to supply customers.

Those price adjustments are based on the assumption that we consumers will use less when prices rise, and will rush out to fill our private tanks when prices drop.

The price that we have to pay to get crude is partly based on an auction, spot prices, and longer term contracts. Well, auctions react to what people are eager to pay,us and other people. And long term contract prices  are also a process of bid and ask... a kind of auction. We try to buy fuel on long term contracts to have stable supply. But that means we often pay more than we would on the spot market, or less.

This will be called speculation when people other than the processors buy crude future contracts. Speculators can buy at a lower price and sell at a higher price if they guess which way prices will go. Or they can rent storage tanks and put in supplies waiting for price rises.

Again, the speculator who buys and stores fuel is part of ensuring stable supply, but they expect to profit from that service.

While stable supply is nominally a requirement, shortages can be very profitable to those who happen to have a supply, so failure to plan to have adequate supply is not going to produce much of a penalty, while assured adequate supply is a guarantee that profits will be lower.

Answer 7

you git the people who supply oil git them in a room one of them bends over pulls a price out of there than they all laugh and your new roads that git put in continue to stay bicycle unfriendly and the sky scraper gits another addition to make it the worlds biggest and the people hang on to there old ways of thinking hack the h**l out of everything and when the street is shut down and some kids are riding there skate boards and the officer says stop git off those skate boards you know better but i would like to add thats right kids stay dependant on energy from people who dont like us and keep those signs up in town that say no bicycles roller blades no horses and no skate boards only dependance on energy from people who hate us and then they pull another price out of there behind and laugh again and say maybee we can decimate the protected areas claiming there is alot of oil there tear the h**l out of it log the trees out and turn it into a tree farm and hold onto the old ways some more why would you save gas when you can guzzle it

Answer 8

When you have a monopoly on the oil industry you can gauge the public raise your prices by 500% and get away with it. You have to do it steadily so you don't cause a complete upheaval. Um... what was gas 10 years ago? Do you think they have us by the short and curlies? Want to something about it check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P3Z4kAA1...

Answer 9

Supply and demand.

The supply of oil is not rising much now because countries that sell oil are getting paid enough and they don't need more money.  It's better for them to keep their oil in the ground than to pump more oil.  

Because they would get very low interest at the bank on their extra money.  And their money would actually loose value due to inflation.  But their oil in the ground will probably appreciate in value due to increased demand and higher prices in the future.

The demand for oil is increasing in all the oil-producing countries, China, and India.  Because their economies are growing rapidly.  And their people are buying a lot of cars.

Due to growing demand for oil, future oil prices will likely be higher than they are today.  And that's another reason why oil producers don't want to increase their oil production.  Why sell more now at today's prices, when they can wait and get better prices tomorrow?