Charon,
You have a clear understanding of the industry, it is refreshing to read someone who doesn’t have a knee jerk reaction blaming everyone and everything for the messily price we pay for gas.
First you have to find the oil,
Then build a multi billion dollar pumping station, move it across some of the most in hospitable land imaginable.
Build a billion dollar holding port, build billion dollar tankers, ship it across the ocean, to another billion dollar port,
Put it in trucks, move it to a billion dollar refinery (which takes 800+ permits to build which makes it not worth it)
Produce over 100 blends of gas at 4 different octane’s, then truck it to every station in the country, after they have been built.
And you all complain about the price of gas.
Lets see I bought a bottle of water the other day it was $2.00 for 500ml, that’s $15.20 a gallon.
And my coffee is $1.60 for 500mls that’s $12.16 a gallon.
If there is any price gouging its at Starbucks.