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J “Lifeline of the Gasoline Industry, the Independent Gasoline Dealer.” J

CLXXI Edition October 2013

Gasoline Retailers Association of Florida

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Pat Moricca President Member Service Station Dealers of America

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Gasoline Retailers Association of Florida is a non-profit association representing Independent Gasoline Retailers, Convenience Stores, Gasoline Service Stations, Repair Shops, Tire Retailers, Truck Stops and Associates throughout Florida. Our goal is to improve the interests of these independent businesses and the motoring public. Cooperation with insurance companies provides benefits for our members. These benefits include money-saving programs for AFLAC, group health, workers' compensation, casualty and property and gasoline tank liability insurance. Benefits also include financing to purchase your gasoline station property and much more.

The problems facing our industry today affect every dealer, no matter how large or small. And, since no one individual could possibly begin to solve these problems alone, it remains that each should joinin a collective effort to protect his/her business investment.

Join the Gasoline Retailers Association of Florida and help in the fight to keep the

Florida Motor Fuel Marketing Practices Act (Below Cost) law.

Make an important investment in your business future for less than $1 a day.

Check the Gasoline Retailers Association of Florida endorsed insurance companies for savings.

Contact Meadowbrook Workers compensation dividend policy @ (800) 726-9006 for quote & information.

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2013 average wholesale gasoline prices have changed up or down 171 times from 1st of year to date.

Who makes more from sales at the pump – industry or government?

A lot of factors go into determining the price of gasoline, so it’s worthwhile every now and again to review them

The author an analyst for a taxpayer watchdog group gives a quick rundown of the basics, like crude oil costs, which can account for roughly three-quarters of the price consumers pay at the pump. Then there are expenses for refining, distribution and marketing.

49.5 Cents

Average Federal & State/Local

Gasoline Taxes per gallon

But he also reveals one slice of the gasoline price pie routinely overlooked by those who criticize energy companies and gasoline station owners for high prices he writes. “The truth is that governments rake in a larger profit at the pump than anyone,” including companies like ExxonMobil.

A range of government authorities share in the tax revenue from the gasoline consumers buy. To start, there’s the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon. A variety of state and local sales and excise taxes help boost the price as well. All told, American motorists pay an average of nearly 50 cents per gallon in taxes every time they fill up.

The author concludes that “government makes far more from gasoline sales than all of the oil companies put together.” ExxonMobil, for instance, earned just 8 cents on each gallon of gasoline and refined products sold in the U.S. during the first two quarters of 2012 and gasoline retailers earned an average of even less per gallon. All things to keep in mind the next time you hear criticism of oil companies and gasoline retailers for the cost of filling up.

US gasoline, diesel exports nearing record again

U.S. exports of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products has hit its highest ever level for the third quarter of the year and is on pace to set an overall record, according to federal data.

The United States exported 3.19 million barrels of petroleum products in the week ending Sept. 6, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Exports: New data shows shifting US energy landscape, as petroleum exports soar

The record for exports of diesel, gasoline and other products was set early this year, when overseas buyers took about 3.24 million barrels of products per day in three weeks ending March 8.

But petroleum product exports have tended to reach highs early in the year, according to recent trends. The late surge will continue to improve U.S. petroleum products exports, which have been on an upward trend since 2006.

Fracking moves US crude output to highest level since 1989

U.S. oil production jumped to the highest level in September since May 1989, cutting consumption of foreign fuel and putting the U.S. closer to energy independence.

Drilling techniques including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, pushed crude output up by 124,000 barrels, or 1.6 percent, to 7.745 million barrels a day in the seven days ended Sept. 6, the Energy Information Administration said today.

Rising crude supplies from fields including North Dakota’s Bakken shale and the Eagle Ford in Texas have helped the U.S. become the world’s largest exporter of refined fuels including gasoline and diesel. Texas pumped 2.575 million barrels a day in June, according to the EIA, enough to rank it ahead of seven members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“It’s amazing,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC, a Houston-based consulting firm, who predicted last month that the U.S. would be pumping 7.75 million barrels a day by the end of the year. “The state of Texas is now producing more oil than the country of Iran ”Iran produced 2.56 million barrels a day in June, according to a Bloomberg survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela pumped more than Texas that month.

Rising Supplies

The U.S. met 87 percent of its own energy needs in the first five months of 2013, on pace to be the highest annual rate since 1986, EIA data show. Domestic crude output will average 7.5 million barrels a day in 2013 and 8.4 million in 2014, the EIA said yesterday in its Short-Term Energy Outlook. Rising domestic supplies have curbed consumption of foreign fuel. Net imports of crude oil and petroleum products will fall to 5.4 million barrels a day by 2014, down from 12.5 million in 2005, the EIA, a unit of the Energy Department, said in the report.

The abundance of crude has made the U.S. an increasingly important refining hub. U.S. exports of distillate fuel oil, largely comprised of diesel, rose to an all-time high of 1.285 million barrels a day in June, the EIA said Aug. 29.

Charters for product tankers from the U.S. Gulf Coast reached a record of 42 last week, according to a Sept. 6 weekly shipping report by Charles R. Weber Co., a ship broker based in Greenwich, Connecticut. About 15 of those were bound for Europe, also a record, the data showed.

ND oil output hits another all time high
North Dakota oil production hit another all time high for the month of July, according to the North Dakota Industrial Commission Department of Natural Resources.
Oil output in July hit 27.1 million barrels, or nearly 2.5 million barrels higher than June production, and an increase of 29% versus July 2012, when production was nearly 21 million barrels.
In addition, the number of producing wells also rose to record levels, with 9,322 wells online. This compares to 9,096 wells producing in the month of June.
North Dakota continues to be a bright spot even as oil output from other areas of the country slowly declines. Since 2005, oil output has risen a whopping 800% per month rising from a mere 3 million barrels a month to over 27 million barrels.
According to the report, the capacity of shipping oil continues to be adequate, thanks due to rail shipments to coastal refineries. Drilling permits also increased sharply in August and the NDIC anticipates that it will increase even more as winter approaches.
Note: the number of rigs drilling on federal land in the Dakota Prairie Grasslands remains at zero.

Keystone pipeline project faces Nebraska court showdown

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline faces a court challenge in Nebraska where three property owners contend state legislation gave the governor illegal power to take away their land for the project.

Nebraska’s Legislature transferred to Governor Dave Heineman and, through him, to Calgary-based pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. (TRP), its authority over eminent domain in violation of the state constitution’s separation of powers, the landowners said in a court filing. Today they are scheduled to ask Judge Stephanie Stacy in Lincoln, the state’s capital, to strike down that legislation.

“They’re concerned about the potential environmental effects, concerned that a foreign, for-profit company, came into Nebraska with eminent domain power to take their land,” Brian Jorde, a lawyer for the landowners, said yesterday in a phone interview.

The Keystone XL pipeline, which has also triggered lawsuits challenging eminent domain in Texas, would connect Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Because the project crosses the national border, it is subject to U.S. State Department review. While Congressional Republicans and some Democrats have pressed President Barack Obama to approve the $5.3 billion project, his administration has yet to take action.

The president, in a June speech at Georgetown University in Washington, said the pipeline shouldn’t be built if it’s found to “significantly exacerbate” carbon pollution. The Nebraska legislation at issue amended a prior measure, the Major Oil Pipeline Siting Act, that had placed the state’s Public Service Commission, or PSC, in charge of any such project as a regulator of common carriers. The new bill created an option of seeking approval from the governor and the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, bypassing the PSC. (‘Create Jobs’)

“Nebraska will move forward on the review process of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and any future pipelines that will create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil,” Heineman, a Republican, said in an April 2012 statement issued upon signing the bill. “The review process is a top priority for Nebraska.”

Boxer: End Federal Gas Tax

New tax on oil at refineries would replace levy on consumers at pump, pay for highways

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer California, in charge of writing legislation to continue highway construction after 2014, said she favors eliminating the 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline that pays for such work, according to a Bloomberg report. She said at a hearing that she wants to replace the levy paid by consumers at the pump with a new tax paid on oil at refineries.

That tax would generate enough revenue to fund highways and mass transit for six years, Boxer said.

"This could bring in more than all the other taxes bring in for transportation," said Boxer, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. "It would fund highway programs for six years, and it would do that while we do away with other fees. It's a very exciting idea."

Barbara Boxer the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in July that the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road and bridge projects, will be insolvent by 2015 unless Congress raises the gasoline tax, bails out the fund with general tax dollars or eliminates most highway spending. Congress has been gridlocked over raising the gasoline tax, the main source of revenue in the trust fund, since 2009, said the report. Revenue has declined since 2007 through a combination of a lagging economy, fewer miles driven and more efficient cars.

The gasoline tax was last raised in 1993 and has never been indexed to inflation. The tax's purchasing power has declined almost 40% over that period, said the report, citing the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

"In recent years, we have only been able to maintain necessary investments through transfers from the general fund," Baucus said. "We're robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Rand in a 2011 paper said a percentage tax on oil would be simpler than the current taxing system, could be indexed to inflation and structured to fluctuate with the price of oil to keep transportation funding steady, Rand said. Producers, consumers and other users of oil, like homeowners, would pay, according to the Santa Monica, Calif.-based nonprofit research institution.

In the current highway-funding bill, passed in 2011, Congress used $18.8 billion in general taxpayer money through fiscal 2014 to supplement the Highway Trust Fund to maintain spending on highway, bridge and transit construction needs.

The U.S. will spend $40 billion on highway construction in fiscal year 2013, as well as $11.7 billion on transit and $1.3 billion on highway-safety programs, the report said, citing AASHTO.

Shell announces Gulf Coast site for potential multibillion-dollar plant

Royal Dutch Shell has picked a site in Louisiana for a plant costing at least $12.5 billion that would turn natural gas into diesel, jet fuel and other liquids, the Louisiana governor’s office announced Tuesday.

Shell said the project, which is no sure thing, could help to harness more domestic natural gas to make transportation fuels. The company will continue to consider the option before making an investment decision at the site in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, according to the news release.

The plant would offer the benefit of displacing oil used to make fuels and other products and lowering emissions, since Shell says liquids produced from natural gas burn cleaner than those produced from oil.

LNG: Shell to push natural gas for trains, vehicles

It also would create at least 740 direct jobs with an average salary of $100,000, as well as at least 3,900 indirect jobs, according to the announcement. Louisiana State University estimates the project would have an economic impact of $77.6 billion over the construction period and the first 15 years of operation of the plant, according to the press release.