impressive. In Washington DC west (aka northern VA) it's still around $2.6.
Oh for sure, the equipment alone has an astronomical cost. Distillation and logistics to the pump is a long and expensive process. I just thought it was interesting that my state hasn't seen the level of decrease that other places has, in fact not much of one at all for 91 compared to the last 2 years. Especially given we have 4 local refineries. Marathon is spending quite a bit of money upgrading theirs at the moment.
the problem is the CME violated one of the absolute truisms of markets, that one's losses have a finite limit. When zero is the floor, you know with certainty the worst case scenario. But now your losses approach infinite. How is that supposed to attract investors and facilitate trade? I think it's sacrilege that anyone who doesn't produce an item, or own storage facilities (no renting doesn't count unless you can prove up the sum-total of your storage under contract is less than the positions you have open), or consume it is allowed to transact in commodity futures.
Yes and no. Refiners are getting paid to take crude. Problem is they can't move the refined products - low demand, and those storage tanks are 'full' too. So the ones really taking it in the shorts are the speculators, though producers aren't immune which means they have to turn off their wells. Not such an easy thing to do. And it's not exactly free to turn them back on.
Yep most refineries are at idle right now. Or have shut parts or all of the refinery down. Due to a lack of storage/demand. The only thing keeping refineries afloat right now are products like benzene or home heating oil. The actual cost of gasoline from one state to the next has more to do with how much your state taxes gas than anything else. I live in Jersey which is one of the hardest hit by the virus. But the governor could open the southern half of the state today without much worries. If things don't open soon we're going to have a giant mess on our hands. I don't believe the government can keep printing monopoly money to cover everything.
But when price of a barrel goes up they're sure quick to raise the prices 3 mins later.
