From a retired SF friend...He is not running for office.
"Remember the "oil crunch" of 1973?
I lived and worked in West Germany when the world was told we had an oil shortage. Gasoline at the pump cost about $5 a gallon at the time, but nobody complained. For three Sundays, only emergency vehicles were to be on the roadways.
It was an eerie feeling to step out into a street on Sunday and see no traffic, just people.
Speed limits, non-existent until then on the Autobahn, was reduced to 100 km per hour, but Germans kept falling asleep at such a slow speed, so after killing a few dozen drivers, they lifted it.
Some service stations would not sell gasoline except to steady customers. Even then, you could only purchase fuel according to your tag number. Odd number, odd day, even number, even day.
It was a particularly hard time for me because I repaired and serviced photocopy machines throughout southwestern Germany and traveled about 300 km each day in a big BMW heavily loaded with machine parts and tools.
I headquartered in Heidelberg, and as often as I happened to be there overnight, played chess with a group of Americans residing there. One gentleman of that group was the Vice President of Operations for ESSO Oil in Europe. One evening, I stopped playing chess, looked him in the eye and asked him exactly how bad the oil shortage situation was. Nearly word for word, this was his answer.
"What oil shortage? I have ten tankers moored off shore at Bremerhaven with no storage facilities to offload. It’s costing me $10,000 a day and more are coming in as we speak."
I returned to the USA early in 1974 and noticed a lot of service stations had gone out of business.
My friend’s words echoed in my ears as I watched semi-tankers unloading fuel in the tanks of closed stations, using them for storage. Of course, prices for gasoline steadily climbed.
I have long maintained the oil companies have us over a barrel and they are most happy to keep us there. They know we are in love with our vehicles and will pay any price they set. There was a time when their prices crept up a penny at a time, but now, they’re getting braver with the knowledge we will not do without their product.
On March 8, 2004, the cost of West Texas Intermediate light sweet crude was $38.59 a barrel. This week, a year later, that same barrel of oil costs $54.60, but that’s not the bad news.
A lower quality of crude oil can produce the same top-shelf ingredients and sells at the pump for the same price. The public never knows the difference. A barrel of this heavier, low grade oil costs just $47.84, giving the oil company an additional $6.76 profit per barrel.
The thirsty world uses more than 84 million barrels of oil each day. This week, there are 1,282 active rigs in America exploring for oil and natural gas. That’s down by eight from last week.
Now, in view of this educational information, the next time I recommend we revert to age-old customs (to the victor belong the spoils) and whip some small oil producing nation, we shake our fist at the rest of the world and take everything for ourselves.
Vote for me and it shall come to pass." |
