ORIGINAL: b_hollier

I work for an oil company. Here is the real deal on the fuel prices. The reason for gas being so high is due to many reasons, most of it has to do with supply and demand. The US is the largest consumer of oil in the world. We do not make produce enough oil here in the US so we are forced to import oil from other countries like Saudi, Iran, Russia, etc. Another main reason why gas is high is because of the number of different grades of gasoline used in this country. There are 42 different blends of gas used by the 50 different states, CA and CO being the most strict as far as standards go. One way to lower the price of gas would be for every state to use the same grades, no matter if we would all use CA grade gas. This would drop the price of gas over $0.75/gal overnight. The reason it would is because the refineries that make the product would not have to shut down production to switch between the different grades. This would allow them to run year round with fewer shut downs. Other than that our government here in the US has their hands tied with the price of oil, it depends on OPEC. Which is influenced heavily by the Sheiks from the middle east. They are the ones turning the big profits.