Cheapest
.12 a gal Venezuela.

Highest
$6.48 a gal Netherlands



http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lis...bal_gasprices/

 

Gas is considered inexpensive by many in the states right now but really the gas figures in Southern California at least are closer in price to the those in the Netherlands rather than those in Venezuela.

 

Assuming anyone besides a government official in Venezuela can afford to feed a vehicle these days.

 

Gas prices are heavily influenced by taxes. Blame the govt for rising gas prices while crude oil is flooding the market

 

Gas has always been dirt-cheap in Venezuela because the government heavily subsidizes its cost (often to the detriment of other important needs), and, of course, because of the Lake Maracaibo oil fields in the country that themselves yield a large amount of crude each year. Venezuelans consider cheap gas a God-Given right.....any government that doesn't provide it would be voted out of power. In fact, gas is so cheap in that country that a big problem is smugglers buying it up, running it across the borders, and selling it in surrounding countries for a healthy profit. It seems to be like Mexico....border-agents that will look the other way if the smugglers give them a bribe.

Interesting, BTW, that Japan does not have the world's most expensive gas.....that would have been my guess. They have a huge economy and population to feed, and, unlike the Netherlands (which have the North Sea oil fields right next door to them), the Japanese have to import literally almost all of their raw materials from some distance off....including oil. In fact, the desperate Japanese drive south for oil and raw materials in the late 1930s is basically what led to World War II in the Pacific.

 

Lol. Hardly. What is/was Venezuela's per capita GDP and its average annual and monthly wage in USD? It isn't so much that important needs are getting neglected, it's that the petroleum revenue is far too much of the country's economy and that means Venezuela has seen itself become a petro-colony at various times in its history. In fact the current turmoil there is about outside actors interfering by heavily funding the opposition to the standing government.

Now the current turmoil on the streets has now spread to many parts of society but for the last 18 years Venezuela attempted to use petro-dollars to provide for a much larger swath of society.

At any rate, even during good times the Venezuelan annual income was a fraction of what the average American earned, so it's about local pricing of commodities. You can't judge fuel prices with your filters and what you earn/earned in the US.

What's interesting is how high Norway's fuel prices are, considering it's a major energy producer and has been for decades - not to mention that it has a rainy day fund that it diverts oil revenue money into. And Saudi. They pay very low prices for gasoline and subsidize their economy the same way Venezuela does. That's where the stories about high priced cars and SUV's racing around come from with not a care in the world about fuel economy.

 

Actually, yes, it is. The country, right now, is in a semi-famine, with a chronic lack of food in many stores. Some people are waiting days just to get a loaf of bread.

Well, it's true that average income is much higher in the U.S., but the equivalent of $0.15 per gallon (in American dollars) would be cheap in any society.....even destitute places like Haiti or Bangladesh.

 

Yes these are things that are happening. Oil prices collapsed because the Saudis flooded the market, US frackers renewed their efforts to ramp up domestic production while contemplating exporting oil.

But if you think that the triggering of famines just happens randomly I would suggest you look at Venezuela's recent history. While the Bolivarian socialists did mess up the economy somewhat, they are not the only ones to blame. In fact the Chavez government paid off the country's national debt in 2007 while expanding health care, schools, clinics and more.

It's not known widely but outside actors are backing the opposition, ramping up unrest and also colluding with the country's elites who hold much of the supply chain in their hands to choke off things like medicine, food, durable goods etc. Once you do that, unrest and discontent with the standing government is going to spread. This is a very familiar scenerio.

Remember, Venezuela is Cuba's staunchest ally and we know what has happened to that country.

 

We don't subsidize our oil, though, to the extent that the Venezuelans do. I agree, though, that increased production on our part did a lot to drop the price, over and above the Saudis. But, even so, there is still fierce political opposition, here in the U.S., to more offshore drilling.

That actually happened with borrowed Chinese money. What Chavez did, essentially, was trade off one form of debt for another.

 

But again, you are applying a First World filter to a Second World/Developing world country. You don't think the American oil industry was massively backed by the US government at the start of the 20th century? Or that the British and Americans colluded to shape events in the Middle East and elsewhere during the last century due to oil interests?

Anyway, I don't want to deflect this thread into just Venezuela. If you come north of the border gas prices here are ok but no picnic. In the Lower Mainland on the west coast you will see $1.30/liter CAD and at one time I saw $1.50/liter CAD. If you do the dollar conversion and account for the smaller US gallon (3.78 liters/US gallon), you will see an .80/cent a gallon difference for the same product.

In fact there is very little refining that goes on in Alberta, the center of the Canadian oil industry. Much of Canada's tarry crude gets sent south to Texas, Louisiana refineries and then gets shipped right back to Canadians as fuel. And priced appropriately.

 

Don't you have a lot of oil shale/tar there in the Canadian Rockies? I'll admit, though....it is probably more difficult and expensive to extract it and process it than simple drilling for crude.

 

California gas blends almost always cost more than in most other states....you can usually thank two main reasons. First, high taxes and the generally high cost of doing business in the state. Second, CARB (California Air Resources Board) and its unique demands for local gas blends there in California....which make it relatively cost-ineffective, in economies of scale, for the oil companies to refine and deliver that specific gas-blend just for California.

 

No unfortunately the Canadian Rockies are mostly rugged terrain that would make oil drilling pretty much a non-starter. It's easier to just dig the holes in the sands north of the city of Fort MacMurray and turn that stuff into something that can actually be pumped via a line of some sort. The stuff that comes out is a thick sludge that has to be heated via steam and then diluted heavily with nasty chemicals and then thinned out enough so it can actually flow through a pipeline.

I think it's a lost cause for now because there is a glut of oil and there is no sign of that abating.

 

What are the current prices in California these days?

 

cali gas prices are high because they want their special blend no one else can make. And there arent many refineries in cali. Gov Moonbeam is set to increase their gas taxes even more. Houston regular i've seen is already below $2, here the map is showing regular on the west coast is $2.75 and higher. I gassed up for $2.48 for 93 octane the other day

https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap