Gas prices up north… PLEASE READ!

All the prices I am giving are for regular gas, not supreme, not diesel, not extra supreme, I dunmo the grades of gas but I can assure you it is the price for the regular gas. I live in canada and I work at a call center who strictly deals with American customers. Ocationaly I will get asked the gas question and my response is “we use liters so I don’t know what it would be in gallons.” One day I was on the phone and I got asked… again, they guy on the phone was pretty nice and I don’t mind having a out of work conversation on the phone sometimes. We did the conversions and gas is just over $1.44 a liter here (that’s one dollar fourty four cents and about half of a cent). 1 Gallon = 3.785411784 Liters so gas is Gas is $5.47 a gallon here….

I saw on the news that we send our extra fossil fuels to the states (cause we produce more than we need). So why would gas be much more expensive here in canada?

The only thing I can think of is that we have more money than most Americans, I was looking online and it looks as though the average minimum wage in America seems to be between 6-7 dollars as where in Canada it seems to be 8-9 dollars, and out money is worth pretty much the same now. I also know in some of the “better off” provinces here (Alberta, and its oil) cant get any jobs paying minimum wage. They are so strapped for workers there they will literally pay you to go work for 3 weeks and come back for a week making over $20 dollars a hour, I know many people who do this and am concidering it myself. It also dosent mean you will work on the oil rigs, you could get pretty much any job.

I noticed a lot of people concerned when gas hit over $4 a gollon, its been well over that here for a while, we just never noticed (well not me anyways…)

$5.47 a gallon for regular gas! not a prediction, A reality right now for us canadians.

[edit on 12-7-2008 by tylerc25211]

reply to post by tylerc25211


Someone I know just came back from Churchill Manitoba, gas there was 1.98 a litre , that translates to approx 7.50 a gallon.

[edit on 12-7-2008 by Swingarm]

reply to post by Swingarm


ouch, That is rediculouse. What makes canadain cas soooo mcuh more expensive? I live in nova scotia (east coast) and the most ive seem it here was just over $1.46/ liter.

reply to post by tylerc25211


I'm from New Brunswick, but moved to Calgary this last week.
The reason IS because we don't refine it in Alberta.. LOL

We take oil from sand, send the oil to the States to get refined into gas then it's shipped back here.

/thread.

reply to post by xbranscombex


ahhhhhh that makes sence somewhat, but isnt gas in mexico cheaper than is the states? does mexico have gas reserves or do they just buy it and if it buys it where from? cause canada should look that up, or build a refinery lol

no one has any oppinion? strange...

The answer is simple.

Taxes.

Its kinda like how we Canadians still pay 30%+ more for books and magazines then Americans eventhough our dollar is almost on par with the US dollar

thats bull, but i recently heard walmart in canada is going to start selling books and magazines at american prices. (destroying all canadian book stores)

Originally posted by tylerc25211
reply to post by xbranscombex

 

ahhhhhh that makes sence somewhat, but isnt gas in mexico cheaper than is the states? does mexico have gas reserves or do they just buy it and if it buys it where from? cause canada should look that up, or build a refinery lol

Yes it is cheaper in Mexico then in the USA. They actually caught 4 big gas companies coming across the border with tankers full of Mexican gas. They told them there was a 100 gallon maximum so the companies lost the gas and the cash they had paid. But they had already done it 15 times and got away with it. Buying it in Mexico for $2 a gallon and selling it in Texas for $4.20 a gallon. Mexico has there own gas and there own oil. That is a big problem for us here in the USA because we get 40% of our oil from Mexico.

Hilda

Canadians and Americans have it pretty sweet in terms of petrol prices.

1 Barrel of unrefined oil cost roughly $140 at the mo

So at $4 a gallon you are paying 73 cents per gallon towards the processing, transportation and retailer costs. Think about it people!

I don't know about Candians but I know from motoring magazines etc. that the best selling type of car in the USA for the best part of 25 year is the pick-up!!!

A small European or Japaneses car will easily do 40 Miles per Gallon so for $12 you can theoretically travel 160miles!!! I repeat 160miles!!!

A 6litre engined Pick-up will do prabably about 13-15 MPG so for $12 you only travel 50-60 Miles. Simple mathematics really.

Compare those prices with the current UK price of £1.21 a liter or roughly $9.60 a Gallon!!! Around 70% of that is tax



[edit on 16/7/08 by Jimmy1880]

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
Canadians and Americans have it pretty sweet in terms of petrol prices.

1 Barrel of unrefined oil cost roughly $140 at the mo

So at $4 a gallon you are paying 73 cents per gallon towards the processing, transportation and retailer costs. Think about it people!

Your math is ok, but your fundamentals are flawed. Your calculations would work great if it was a barrel of gas, but that's not the case. It's much more complicated than you have presented here. A barrel of oil contains crude oil, which is a mixture of various hydrocarbons. There's a great graphic on this page - www.gravmag.com... - showing what comes from one barrel.

From one 42 gallon barrel, they get:

19.5 gallon gasoline
9.2 gallons of fuel oil
4.1 gallons of jet fuel
2.3 gallons of residual fuel oil
1.9 gallons of liquified gases
1.9 gallons of still gas
1.8 gallons of petroleum coke
1.3 gallons of asphalt/road oil
small amounts of kerosene, lubricants, and "other"


This page - www.howstuffworks.com... - explains the science of refining a little bit better. It lists the refined components as:

napthas, which are used for dry cleaning fluids and paint solvents.
gasoline
kerosene
lubricating oils, ranging from motor oil all the way up to grease and vaseline.
paraffin wax
tar
asphalt

Originally posted by xbranscombex
reply to post by tylerc25211

 

We take oil from sand, send the oil to the States to get refined into gas then it's shipped back here.

/thread.

Not true. We do ship some of it, but we also refine alot as well. In Lloydminster there is the Husky refinery, In Edmonton there is Shell, Esso, Petro Canada, OUt in Ontario there is Sunoco, another Esso and Petro Canada refinery.

The reason our gas is so expensive is because of taxes. We have the Fuel taxes, provincial taxes, federal excise taxes, GST. You take away some of those, or make them reasonable and things would be peachy.

Originally posted by Rook1545
The reason our gas is so expensive is because of taxes. We have the Fuel taxes, provincial taxes, federal excise taxes, GST. You take away some of those, or make them reasonable and things would be peachy.

I just did a brief search on the net and what came back regarding canadian gas tax sure shocked me. From what I read, about 1/3rd of the price at the pump is taxes. It also must be considered that government is taxing the gas companies on every dollar profit they make...which makes even more of that price go to taxes.

I haven't checked, but I'm guessing this is the similar situation all over the world. I think all of the europeans coming in here and pointing the finger saying we had it too good with cheap gas should point that finger at their government for oppressing them with unreasonable taxes.

Anyone who is interested in comparing gas prices should bookmark this site:

www.gasbuddy.com

It only covers the US and Canada but you can click on any state or province and then further select your specific location. If your town is listed, you will be able to see the top 10 and lowest 10 prices in your area. From there you can even bring up a map to the station. This is very helpful when you know you are going to fill up you can find the best price near you.

Their Temperature Maps are also interesting (color indicates prices). There are historical price charts and all kinds of other info there as well.

If you are really gas concious, you can sign up with the site and submit your own price info for your area.

for this site!

Originally posted by BlueTriangle
I just did a brief search on the net and what came back regarding canadian gas tax sure shocked me. From what I read, about 1/3rd of the price at the pump is taxes. It also must be considered that government is taxing the gas companies on every dollar profit they make...which makes even more of that price go to taxes.

The gas companies are also really good at passing those taxes on. They included in the "refining costs". So you get taxed on the tax on the tax of the cost. Completely messed up.