I was speaking about the $20 billion _profit_, which is what they take home after operating expenses are accounted for.
Still, profit is not high considering they still have to pay money.
The profits are inflated because Exxon can get away with charging us through the nose at the gas pumps.
There is a high demand which is driving oil prices up, but there's a tremendous amount of profit-taking going on. As soon as we had that cold snap in February, my gas prices went up a good 50 cents a gallon, supposedly because there was more demand for heating oil in the Northeast. Well, heating oil and and gasoline are entirely different, even if they are both petroleum products.
Profit-taking is an inherent part of a corporation. But it is differnet from ripping off. Remember, prices goes up and down regardless. Companies want to make money, but nobody wants to rip the consumers off. It's poor business sense. If the consumers can't afford oil, they'll HAVE to cut back, and this is bad.
Heating oil and gasoline are entirely different products, but they are both pertorleum products...and who sell the pertorleum products? The oil producing companies and countries. They knew there would be high demand for heating oil, and due to that, they have to increase prices for the pertorleum to account for the fact that heating oil companies will purchase more. Indirectly..this leads to higher prices on the pumps.
There is no ripping off going on.
Personally, I think Exxon is using that as a smoke screen. Income-expenses=profit (to put it very simply). Searching for new oil fields is part of their research/development and operating expenses--it already is accounted for as expenses (or should be) against the income because they want to limit their tax liability as much as possible. The fact is gas prices went up, and Exxon and other oil companies started making obscene profits.
Personally, I see what you are saying as a smokescreen. Profit is income-operational expenses to run it. The profit is what the companies do with it, and for the most part, they can give it out to shareholders, or they can "reinvest" it back into the company, to help that company prosper. This reinvestment includes R&D and finding new oil.
Any oil can be converted into a plastics and such. Soybeans are being used to create bio-diesel.
Ah, but then why aren't you screaming about bio-diesel producers ripping you off and making obscene profits? ;) If they become the wave of the future, that may be what will happen.
And, I do think that currently, extracting oil from the ground is cheaper. If bio-disel can become more effiecnt, everyone will prefer it. Until then...the old-faishioned way is okay.
We should be decreasing our dependence on oil, period. It's not going to last forever.
Maybe. It's obivous that the current oil deposits won't last forever. But how long they will last, that's the main question? 100 years? 1000 years? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? Prehaps, by that time, we'd all be dead from the Apoc, and then, we won't be dependent on oil. :)
And if it turns out we do run out of oil, or run dangerously close to running out of oil, oil prices will grow so high (due to its scarcity) that we will wean ourselves out from oil dependency.
And what about oil producing nations? Shouldn't they wean themselves out of oil as well? Why in the world are you worried about the USA, and not about, say, Saudi Arabia, who is suffering as well from oil addiction (it's an addiction of selling oil, not buying oil)? Most of their income comes from selling oil...if we switch, the whole Middle East would have little way of suriving in this cold world? Poverty may result...and poverty may result in an Islamic revolution.
They don't want to convert, because it's going to cost them a ton of money up front to get to that point. They don't want to take the financial hit.
But they'll have to if they want to remain competitive.
Exxon has stopped supporting "global warming"-deniers and is trying to remake itself as green to remain competitive. They know the future, and they want to be a part of it.
I don't get it: To you, they got obscene profits already. They can afford to take the financial hit, and still pay for bonsues, and such.
Of course, I think the powers-that-be in government aren't too interested in making any changes, either. That would cut off their perks from the oil companies....
Well, remember who has the reins of powers. Not the powers-that-be, but the people that contorl who the powers-that-be are. You can always sponser a movement to move away from oil dependency, or actually, focus on talking to Exxon, see their views, and encourge them.
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Note: Techincally, anyone can buy stock in Exxon. If you are so upset about obscene profits, why not go and obscenely grab more money from Exxon, via dividens and rising stock prices? :) That should help you at the pump.
EDIT: This article (
http://www.theonion.com/2056-06-22/news/6/) summarizes my viewpoints concering finding alternative energy sources quite well.