Hello,
what would you think happens, if poorer people cannot afford it anymore ? Those managers who now make profit do not think more than, hhmm, 10 years ahead ? A typical manager of a profitable company like the "Deutsche Bank" or "ExxonMobil" has ethical values of a churchyard worm. This is what he is paid for after all.
There is no event in history that companies would have lowered prices in favour of "the poor" - in all scenarios big companies would rather go bankrupt than that, or find another strategy or product to go on. Only reason for low prices is dumping to drive another company out of the market.
Oil companies in Europe now head for hydrogen production and solar energy, and ... water resources. If you control the satisfaction of a population's vital needs you can demand any price.
There are already people in Europe who cannot afford fuel any more. It does not matter much, there are german SUV cars that burn more than 20 litres/100 km (don't know how much mpg that is), and even if there are less poor who pay, there are some rich who do not care. And believe me those SUVs sell better than ever. It is just that the difference between poor and rich is currently developing a gap that never has been that wide before. Which is a situation that certainly can become explosive by itself. I just read the 20 percent of the population who is "well off" in Germany does not care until prices reach 2 and a half Euros/litre.
Oil, ok. We speak about production. Speaking of the upstream market oil is not really being produced, it is pumped up, sometimes with a lot of technology, admitted. Having a worldwide statistic including exploration, building and maintaining rigs and drilling with an assumed failure of 70 percent, the "production" of a barrel, which is a bit more than a litre (or 159 of them to be exact) costs around 52 Dollar cents (yes, a barrel).
Now you argue there are technical costs, transportation and raffination into the different petrochemical products, taxes etc. - but you will never reach the price that is demanded today. Petrochemical companies are currently making more $$ than ever. Question is how long, but ... who cares ?
Greetings,
Catfish
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