Contrast what the government gets per gallon of gas in the form of taxes with what the oil companies make per gallon. You'd be amazed who's making a ton of cash...

Oil companies typicaly make only a few cents per gallon of gasoline sold. The bulk of their profit comes from crude oil.

 

gambit i filled up from 1/4 of a tank at the shell station by the wawa and 7-11 outside foxmoor and it cost $42 (premium and on my debit card too.) The problem is what person is going to carry an extra 50 to 80 dollars cash on them just to get gas.

 

I'd be ok with it if they put both signs in big letters. But it sucks when you pull up, open your tank, put the gas in and go to pay only to find out it's more expensive, it's already to late and that level of shadiness needs to be stopped.

Fine, charge more you *****, but tell me upfront.

 

In Australia this is the government tax base..per litre....
38.5 cents per litre Federal Excise (Tax) fixed.
13.0 cents per litre 10% GST (VAT) State Tax.

So..it is 51.5 cents per litre in tax..the rest (80 cents) is oil company, refinery, wholesale,transportation costs and profit.

Retail price today is $1.32.9 cents per litre

 

Those numbers are roughly the same per gallon in the U.S. in terms of taxes. Between Federal, State, and Local taxes, about $.60-.70 per gallon goes to the various governments. That leaves roughly $2.30 to cover all the other costs. Around 40% of the price of a gallon of gas is due to the cost of crude. So at $2.30, (assuming $3.00 a gallon,) that means $.92 goes to the raw material from which gas comes, bringing us to $1.38 a gallon to cover the cost of refining, pumping and storing, and transportation to the gas station. Add to that the gas station's costs that need to be covered, (rent, local business taxes, employee payroll, franchise fees, etc.) and you can see that $1.38 being eaten up very quickly with little room for profit.

Another way to look at it is this: the first week of June contracts for gas delivery was around $2.15 a gallon, exclusive of transportation costs. That's what the commodities markets brought the price to through their daily trading. That's the price the gas station has to pay the oil company per gallon for their delivery. On top of that price is added the $.60-.70 in taxes. On top of that, the gas station owner needs to add enough to cover his costs, roughly $.15-.20 per gallon bringing us to around $2.90-$3.05 a gallon for 87 octane and that's before the station owner sees a penny of profit.

 

*DING*
the oil company margins on selling finished fuels to the gas stations/distributors is pretty darn low...maybe even lower than 5 years ago!
if u look at the balance sheet of a major integrated oil company today, the Downstream (refining and marketing) is in the dumps, while Upstream (crude production) is making big profits. they can pull crude out of the ground for, say, $20/bbl, and sell it to the refinery for market price ($60-$70, whatever it is today). and as stated before, there are many factors that set this commodity price of crude, the oil companies themselves contributing only a portion of the factors.

Like Jon Stossel said on 20/20 this weekend, "Gimme a Break!" re: complaining about gas prices. Go find out what your state is doing with all the windfall tax revenue, make sure your elected officials are putting it to good use. Buy Exxon or Chevron stock; MSFT, GOOG, AMZN aren't the only american success stories making stockholders happy.