Hopkins Oil Pricing

The dock strike in California is going to ruin a lot of people’s Christmas. Shippers will be looking for a permanent alternative so not to get caught again. The strike is spoiling exports also. It is a case of the minority holding the majority hostage. It looks like those clerk jobs are going to be outsourced in the future. Perhaps as a compromise, the union members could be offered alternative similar paying jobs, then eliminate those jobs over time...

We are still experiencing product shortages. However, gasoline rationing ended yesterday in New York so supply, here, should catch up soon. Our prices for Saturday, Sunday and Monday are little changed. Gasoline is down by $.003 at the average rack in Selma. Diesel fuel is unchanged.

Hopkins Oil’s office will be closed Thursday, November 22nd for that unique American day of celebration called Thanksgiving. After four long years of hardship in this economy, it looks like we will once again to give thanks that the economy seems to be recovering. We will  be open as usual on Friday.

If you ever watch House on television, you have heard him exclaim ‘You Idiot”. Today’s House You are an Idiot Award goes to the man who used my carwash last night at the Exxon. The carwash has been out of business all weekend. The manager found a big leak over the weekend so he shut off the water, pulled down the Exit door and put up the ‘Carwash Closed’ sign. He could not close the entry door because the strap  had broken off He could not reach it. This guy drove his car into the carwash and ran a dry brush carwash, then backed out, called the police and filed a report that the carwash had scratched up his car. Now he wants his car painted. Winner!

Gasoline is up by 1.2 cents at the average rack in Selma. Diesel fuel is down by 1.8 cents. Prices are...

Bill, our lube salesman attended a wedding in New York this past weekend. He flew Jet Blue. He reported that he enjoyed the flights and would do it again with that carrier. The only part he did not like was the takeoff to return. He looked back down the aisle. The flight attendant was seated on one of those fold out seats near the head. She repeatedly  crossed herself as the plane began the takeoff. He kept thinking, “What does she know that I don’t?” But it turned out okay.
 
Gasoline is down by 3.4 cents. Diesel fuel is down by 2.8 cents. Prices are...

Remember Rascal, our one-of-a-kind dog. He is growing up, now over 10 months and 50 pounds. Terri, my wife, invited Kelly over, our niece, and she brought  Jack, her golden retriever. Jack is over a year old and about 4 inches taller than Rascal.  No matter, Rascal jumped on Jack. Much growling and snarling ensued, though I am not sure anyone was hurt. But, Terri said she had been waiting until Rascal was a year old before having him ‘fixed’. Now she would see to it sooner. Sure enough, the following week, he went under the knife. Empathy! Two weeks later, we have a replay. Kelly comes over. Brings Jack. Rascal is under the table by my feet. As Jack walked by, Rascal lunged like a plane, CAT shot off a carrier. If anything, the result was worst this time than the first. Rascal hit Jack like a linebacker hitting a halfback. More growling and snarling as we pulled them apart. Later, I saw my wife sit Rascal down to give him a talk. Rascal was sitting up as he is in the picture. Then I heard Terri say to him in that sweet musical voice, ‘Now Rascal, you are going to have to be good and stop fighting with Jack, OR we will have to find what else you have to cut off’.
Guys, I have to tell you, women are scary the way they think. Rascal has taken his revenge by repeatedly peeing on the floor, far worse than he was before.

Prices are little changed for Tuesday. I was thinking back to a time when I was in high school and I drove an oil truck every summer for my Dad. I learned to drive a tractor while “trucking tobacco” for my uncle so when my dad asked me to drive the oil truck, I was ready. He opened the driver’s door and said, ’Get up there. You aren’t going to learn any younger’. I was fifteen with a learner’s permit, probably 1962. From that time and throughout the rest of the sixties, every summer I delivered mostly kerosene but also some #2 fuel oil to tobacco barns to “cure” the tobacco. During that time, the price did not change. We charged 18.9 cents for kerosene and 17.9 for fuel. Prices increased quickly after the shortage of the Embargo in 1972. During the first Gulf War, the largest price increase, that I remember, was 6 cents in one day. We could not believe it. During the shortages after the hurricane in 2007, the largest single daily price increase was 28 cents by ConocoPhillips. But the big daily swings, up or down 3 cents per day or more, did not start until 2004 when a lot of fund managers were looking for another way to invest when interest rates were very low. Today, volatility is ordinary...

Gasoline is up by 3.8 cents at the average rack in Selma. Diesel fuel is up by 5.8 cents. Prices are...

More good news. Prices dropped again. Gasoline is down another 10.4 cents. Diesel fuel is down by 6.8 cents. This does not make sense with the new QE3 starting last week and the dollar index dropping to 79 cents. Commodities should be bounding up, not down. But I think I finally discovered the reason. Crude oil inventories were expected to increase by 1 million barrels. But they actually increased by 8.53 million barrels. Instead of an increase of 42 million gallons, we got an increase to inventory of, are you ready, 358,260,000 gallons of crude. Someone has been doing some serious fracturing. I did predict that we would ultimately be pulled out of this recession by our domestic oil industry which will also decrease our imports and help our balance of trade, we keep our wealth here. This could be happening now. Imagine what would occur if the Keystone Pipeline were completed. All those new millionaires spending money and all those thousands of well-paying jobs created, all in spite of our President, like Don Quixote, out  jousting windmills.

I was thinking today about the latest Quantitative Easing or QE3. With this effort, the Fed is going to buy $40 Billion of home mortgages in an effort to spur home building, I am guessing. Whether good or bad, I cannot connect the dots. How will the Fed service those mortgages. Are all of these homeowners going to make out a check once a month to the Federal Reserve and mail it with Attention: Ben Bernanke? Works for me...

The first round of purchases, known as QE1, aimed to arrest the financial crisis, in part by clearing room on bank balance sheets. The second round, called QE2, was started amid concerns that prices were increasing too slowly, raising the specter of deflation. This round, by contrast, is aimed squarely at the huge and persistent unemployment crisis.

Here are today’s prices (Friday 14th). Gasoline prices are down by 3.3 cents/gallon at the average rack in Selma. Diesel fuel is down by $.08/gallon.

Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame, broke his silence today, one that has lasted since the stock went public. Now that the stock price is worth about half of its original value, he was quoted as saying “the stock has been a disappointment”. For understatements, that has to rank up there with Emperor Hirohito’s quote to the Japanese people, after the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, “The war has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage”. Do you think?

Saturday prices are normally good through Monday. Gasoline is up by 1.9 cents. Diesel fuel is up by 2.0 cents. Saturday prices are...

Gasoline is down by 3.6 cents at the Average Rack in Selma. Diesel fuel is down by 4.8 cents. Prices are:

I have been thinking about the budget process and the fact we have had no budget for the past two, going on three years. Just me, and again, I don’t have a college degree in accounting or even business, but it seems like they are going about the whole budget process backwards. As It is now they, politicians, argue about what to cut or not cut to try and balance the budget. Perhaps every several years, not too close but not too far apart, maybe every ten years like the census, we have the whole budget in a sunset limitation. When the sun goes down on the tenth year, all items in the budget lapse and we start from scratch. We would have to pass bills on what is absolutely necessary, things we cannot do without. Once those are budgeted, then we would see how much money is left, if any, and pick and choose the best choices left among the concerns that are most dear to all of us, knowing that we cannot fund everything in the world that we would like to fund. This would go for every department in the government...

One of my drivers just bought a new Boss Mustang. She was telling us about it at the office, how it has 450 h.p. and it comes with two keys, one for street driving and another key than turns on over 3000 racing components. Impressive! I personally think that any car one buys now will be a huge increase in quality. But the two key idea made me think, what if parents could have a regular key for themselves but a ‘teenager’ key for the kids that would tone down some of the performance features until their kids had made all those mistakes we all made and most of us are lucky enough to survive and learn from them. Just put a limit on some of the risk. One has to learn to control power and not let power control the person...

If you have no interest in big trucks, you should skip this read...

Europe looked better yesterday. The Euro and stock market went up. The dollar was down pushing commodities up. Crude is trading at $96.40 in London at this time, down by 40 cents. The Fed is meeting today to discuss another Quantitative Easing or QE3. The stock market forces are demanding QE3. I think it is a mistake which drive the dollar down and drive up commodity prices even farther. The U.S. economy with benefit more with lower gasoline and other commodity prices. Gasoline jumped up by 5.3 cents. Diesel fuel is up 2.9 cents. Price are...