Bill, I also live on the left coast... our higher prices at the pump are not due to the commodity price of oil as much as politics. In the San Francisco area, unleaded self serve regular gas sells for about $1.45 to $1.55 a gallon. The prices are largely due to a special clean air gasoline mixture that our "brilliant" state legislators have imposed on the petro refiners and distributers here. They say the magic mix makes cars burn cleaner, but my $40 biannual smog test shows that my car runs no cleaner with the new mix than what it did two years ago. On top of that, they add some of the highest state fuel taxes in the US. (Of course, this pales in comparison to fuel prices in Europe or many other countries).
This means that unleaded gas which is refined for the other 49 states can not be sold "as is" in Calif. Like any custom product, gas is going to cost more. If Calif. gas supplies are running low, distributors can't reallocate supply from neighboring states. They have to wait for the refiners to give them some more of the special brew. Naturally, refiners don't want to make too much of the special brew, because they can't ship it off to any other state and don't want to stock pile too much.
I travel every month or so to different parts of the USA, and always find gas to be priced much lower at the pump than around home. In Calif, you pay a premium for almost everything to live here. In spite of high gas prices, people I work with commute horrendous distances in their SUVs, and traffic is worse all the time. Seems that people are willing to spend a a lot on gas and cars for commuting to find an affordable place to live in Calif. Most Silicon Valley workers can't find a decent, plain old tract house to buy near work for much less than $350,000. To cut the monthly house payment down by over $1000, lots of people spend a few hundred extra on gas...often over 100 miles roundtrip to work in exchange for a house under $200K. So, unless these folks suddenly figure out how to build semiconductors, computers, and network routers at home (doubtful), the gas consumption will continue and the prices will not get much cheaper around here. P.S. I don't have to hassle with the freeway gridlock - I ride my bike to work on the sidestreets. Ray. |
