Duane Bozarth wrote:
Brian Elfert wrote:

"George" George@least writes:

Oil companies are making more or less the same per cent profit as always per
barrel, but if the price goes up, the total dollars do as well, enabling the
press to state that their profits are "at record levels."

I've not done this, but I bet if someone calculated the percentage of
profit versus revenue that the oil companies are making a higher
percentage these days.

Any company that doesn't have higher profits year after year isn't keeping
up with the yearly growth in the economy.


Reading annual/quarterly earnings reports indicates that quite a few
aren't, then...

AFAIK, it's unusual for a profit percentage to increase, or drop, by a
whole lot. What usually happens is more of an item is sold, at the same
percentage of profit, so that there is a gain in profitability. There
are numerous tactics for increasing profits that include dropping the
profit per unit sold, in order to increase the number of units sold.

I read somewhere that one major oil company had a 40% increase in
profits, while another had a 60% increase. There was no way to tell
what method was used, but I do know that distributors who are attaching
what appears to be 6-8 cents a day to gasoline prices are not doing it
because the refinery is passing that along. When a barrel of oil goes
up, the price of the gasoline goes up, and the price of the gasoline to
the refinery/distributor has not yet risen, and may not for a week or
two. Thus, the public is getting gouged rather nicely. One local outfit
priced their gas at $2.39.9 when the truck filled their tanks. That
price increased to $2.47.9 today, though no truck has been near the
place. What happened? I think the owner drove through town and realized
he was a dime under anyone else, so he tacked most of that on.

Profiteering is not at all unusual in such situations. I don't know
whether it is moral or not, but I do know that I'd rather pay more for
gas with a dealer who prices it honestly from the start than I would
from one who pops the price based on what he discovers the market will
bear after he has set his normal profit percentage.