Gas shortage in DFW area (Dallas: delivery, station, ranking)

[Ishad]

Originally Posted by cordata

And where would they refine the strategic reserves?

At the Phillips 66 Lake Charles facility.

[Rakin]

Originally Posted by cordata

Question for the economists on this board... what would be the most efficient way to prevent or deal with this situation? As someone pointed out if prices rose then demand would decline to some equilibrium... Wouldn't higher prices lead to less "panic buying?" Would it make sense to have an "emergency tax" in these cases that went into effect during a natural disaster? (Funds raised to pay for relief) Do 'anti-gouging' laws hurt the situation? I don't think finger wagging will prevent the panic buying, it has to be price related.

I'm skeptical that "everyone" is doing panic buying ... are there any real estimates on what the increased demand actually is?

Back in the 70's when we had into gas rationing they would..

Limit you to 10 gallons. Today they could restrict the $$ you pay at the pump or make you pay cash.
You had certain days to gas up depending on the last digits of your license plates.

That's the time car pooling and ride sharing became very popular.

[cordata]

Originally Posted by Ishad

At the Phillips 66 Lake Charles facility.

I'm struggling to understand how tapping strategic reserves of crude oil will help a shortage caused by refinery capacity. Can anyone explain?

[iberanon]

Originally Posted by cordata

I'm struggling to understand how tapping strategic reserves of crude oil will help a shortage caused by refinery capacity. Can anyone explain?

It doesn't. It does help with the profits though.

Also, there is no shortage. The media lied again.

[Stevehanrahan41]

Originally Posted by oldoak2000

yes - people are causing a panic out there on gas; reporters are now talking about it on radio and tv - adding 'fuel to the fire'.
I went to SAMS at lunchtime to pickup prescription - fuel station shut down (empty).

This store is normally empty during day, but parking lot was PACKED! ??? I had several minutes to burn while waiting for Rx, so i walked around; crazy people were packing carts with food - thats right, already panic food buying. Overheard several couples arguing 'how much to buy' - one couple was shoving 10 50# bags of RICE into two carts ?#?#?#?#? while talking about what they should load up next to have 'just in case' . .

Crazy!

Our fuel comes from all over:

I'm sure these people were probably buying mostly for Harvey donation. The rice especially makes sense as Houston has a large Asian population

[octo]

Originally Posted by iberanon

It doesn't. It does help with the profits though.

Also, there is no shortage. The media lied again.

What media are you talking about? ALL the local stations and papers report that there is no shortage but that this is due to logistics/panic buying.

So the media says "no shortage" and you say "no shortage" and then you claim the media lied again ?!?

[MKDFW]

Originally Posted by cordata

Question for the economists on this board... what would be the most efficient way to prevent or deal with this situation? As someone pointed out if prices rose then demand would decline to some equilibrium... Wouldn't higher prices lead to less "panic buying?" Would it make sense to have an "emergency tax" in these cases that went into effect during a natural disaster? (Funds raised to pay for relief) Do 'anti-gouging' laws hurt the situation? I don't think finger wagging will prevent the panic buying, it has to be price related.

I'm skeptical that "everyone" is doing panic buying ... are there any real estimates on what the increased demand actually is?

You are correct. A different form of this is on display right now. The lines are long at stations with normal pricing. The lines are very short at stations with normal + $1.50 pricing.

Another way to handle it would be to increase the price to about $5/Gallon for the next five days, and then the prices revert to normal. But, that would be collusion, and that is an entirely different topic.

[TheOverdog]

economists on this board... what would be the most efficient way to prevent or deal with this situation?

It depends really...
If this really is a logistics problem (meaning we have plenty of refined gas but they are not able to get it do DFW quickly enough - then the supply companies need to fire their forecasters (generally well educated people with MBAs) and hire some who watch the weather and have a 'disaster scenario' plan) where they reroute and park tankers in strategic locations around DFW before the storm shuts everything down -so they can use the ready refined fuel and refill stations more quickly. Gas stations are straight up losing money by not being able to resupply quickly enough. That's a problem whether there is a run on goods or there is not.

If there isn't enough refined supply to supply all of TX with the refineries down, then there really is nothing they can do beyond maybe having local to DFW storage locations where they can rely on local deliveries- but hurricanes don't really happen often enough and JIT (just in time) deliveries and economics are really much better the rest of the time.
Per this quote from QuickTrip from the Dallas Observer ""You are not going to have enough supply to meet your normal needs," he says, acknowledging that the news of a restricted supply is spiking demand...Thornbrugh says QuikTrip is still waiting for information about when supplies — which he says are down about 6 million barrels a day " So this is a legitimate shortage and not a logistics problem. http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/s...ortage-9829285

The lines are long at stations with normal pricing

Normal pricing is up $0.40 cents on regular in the past month or so. Asking the price to be $3.50 per gallon is going to have negative economic effects in a spread out place like DFW.

[Johnhw2]

Originally Posted by txjl123

The only way to calm down the panic now is to tap into national strategic oil reserve and to increase TX supply. Gasoline is absolute need that people will pay any price for in shortage situation, and will have profound effects when in shortage. I thought the Governor is working closely with Trump for anything from the fed. The storm went through TX and LA right over the refineries.

The Strategic reserve is crude oil you car wont run on that. We need gasoline here in DFW not more crude right now, Crude runs will go up as fast as the refineries shut down come back up, if more crude was needed the refiners would be calling for it. Trump nor the governor make gasoline they are working closely toether but that doesnt increase gasoline production. They can and are moving gasoline to Tx from other states that they can and are doing... not crude gasoline lol. You probably dont know it but making gasoline out of crude is a manufacturing process that pays good in Houston.

[Johnhw2]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

It depends really...
If this really is a logistics problem (meaning we have plenty of refined gas but they are not able to get it do DFW quickly enough - then the supply companies need to fire their forecasters (generally well educated people with MBAs) and hire some who watch the weather and have a 'disaster scenario' plan) where they reroute and park tankers in strategic locations around DFW before the storm shuts everything down -so they can use the ready refined fuel and refill stations more quickly. Gas stations are straight up losing money by not being able to resupply quickly enough. That's a problem whether there is a run on goods or there is not.

If there isn't enough refined supply to supply all of TX with the refineries down, then there really is nothing they can do beyond maybe having local to DFW storage locations where they can rely on local deliveries- but hurricanes don't really happen often enough and JIT (just in time) deliveries and economics are really much better the rest of the time.
Per this quote from QuickTrip from the Dallas Observer ""You are not going to have enough supply to meet your normal needs," he says, acknowledging that the news of a restricted supply is spiking demand...Thornbrugh says QuikTrip is still waiting for information about when supplies — which he says are down about 6 million barrels a day " So this is a legitimate shortage and not a logistics problem. Suppliers Give Details About Dallas Gas Shortage | Dallas Observer

Normal pricing is up $0.40 cents on regular in the past month or so. Asking the price to be $3.50 per gallon is going to have negative economic effects in a spread out place like DFW.

The logistics folks are engineers not MBA. An MBA has no clue about refining nor trading or exchaning product or crude. No one forecast that DFW would panic and every one rush to fill up their tank, which is the major cause of the current so called shortage in DFW right now. Its not the weather not the oil companies who caused it its the guy in the mirror who fell for the panic.