How does the gas industry work?
439808
The general breakdown is\n\n-59% crude oil price\n-10% refining\n-11% marketing and distribution\n-20% taxes\n\nSo, with 75 per barrel, they can make about 19.5 gallons of gas and a few other products.  That's the bulk of the cost.  The refining and taxes are pretty much fixed in the short-term, so that's another 30% right there.  The gas companies and Exxon usually split the last 11%, with the oil companies taking most of that and then the individual gas stations marking it up the last few cents.\n\nEven if the oil companies wanted to be "generous," they couldn't do much more than around 5-10%, which would be around 20 cents savings total, not the few dollars that everyone is hoping for.
131248
Consumer economy. Gas has historically been much cheaper than any other source of fuel. When it's price rose in those countries, only THEN did they move to alternative fuels. Same goes for what will happen here. Gas has priced itself out of our market now.
100433
As far as:\ncost\nsafety\nreliability\nmaintenance\n?\nregarding:\nappliances\nheating\nrefrigeration\n?\n\nGenerally, surprisingly enough, people in your area have this pretty well figured out for the region. <They just copy good engineers work> If you are spending money, call six contractors and ask for an informal demographic profile of the area. Ask them what you should do.\n\nhttp://www.google.com/search?q=gas+vs+electric
497334
The guy that owns the pump.\n\nHe can't set it just any way he wants, though.  Too high and nobody will buy from him.  Too low and he will lose money and soon go out of business.\n\nThe cost of gasoline is largely determined by four components: cost of crude oil (about 45%), taxes (about 25%), refining costs (about 18%), and distribution and marketing costs (about 12%).  So, when the price of oil goes up, so does the price of gasoline.  When refining costs go up, so does gasoline.
363648
How much they made in profits has nothing to do with the price of gas.  \n\nThere are quite a few reasons that gas prices are rising.  First, simple supply and demand. The price of the oil that is refined to make gas is rising.  This is because worldwide demand for oil is growing (think about China and India).  Right now due to our little war and the other unstable oil producing countries, worldwide oil production is not where it needs to be.  Secondly, with the increased demand for gas in this country, the current refinery system cannot meet demand.  The EPA has put a strangle hold on any new refineries.  There hasn't been a new refinery built in this country for 30 years.  Lastly, the government has allowed all of the major oil companies to either merge together or be acquired by foreign companies.  Exxon / Mobil, Chevron / Texaco, British Petroleum / Atlantic Richfield and Royal Ductch / Shell.\n\nAll of this is the perfect recipe for big profits.  Publicly traded oil companies like Exxon / Mobil are doing what they are supposed to be doing; maximizing shareholder value.  If you want someone to blame, blame the government.  They make the environmental laws.  They started the war.  They allowed all of the mergers.
1059077
You may have tapped into a new source of natural gas.
331148
There isn't enough space here to cover this subject. You need to be talking with someone directly. I would try a gas processing contractor in Houston. Look in the yellow pages.
68501
First off it is a gas. Second it has a fixed charge. It does not have multiple charges like a metal does.
716510
When a controlled strem of air is passed over hot coke, "coke gas" or "coal gas" is produced:\n\nC + O2 → CO2 \nCO2 + C → 2CO \nC + H2O → CO + H2 \n\n"Water gas" is a term used for a mixture of Carbon dioxide and Hydrogen made by mixing "Coke gas" with steam:\n\nCO + H2O → CO2 + H2
32723
natural gas pipeline companies.
894173
Gases disperse to fill whatever container they occupy.   Gases are composed of matter and thus occupy space.  Since no two objects of matter can occupy the same space at the same time and a gas expands to occupy a given space a force(pressure) exist.  As the temperature increases the pressure increases because you are adding energy to the system.
788371
Air has pressure, much like any gas.  By using this pressure it fills in cracks and crevices.
93225
The gas is under pressure, so when you press the nozzel the liquid ....mmmmmm better a picture than words..\n\n http://www.aerosol.com/
501149
I think the refineries, when the run the oil through a cracker, can determine how much to pull off as gasoline and how much to turn in to other things. Refineries actually make more money on light end hydrocarbons which are sold to the petrochemical industry to make all sorts of things, even plastics.
167356
Yes. Natural gas from what is known as coal bed methane is becoming an important source of natural gas. The natural gas is held within the coal and trapped by water. By dewatering the coal, large quantities of natural gas can be produced from underground coal seams.\n\nNatural gas and petroleum frequently are found together in the same reservoir. The natural gas can form what is called a gas cap over the petroleum reservoir and the pressure from the trapped natural gas can be used as the "drive" to push oil up and out of the well. As the oil is produced there will be more and more natural gas until the well produces mostly gas. \n\nNatural gas in the earth forms in one of two ways, either through biological activity, or from catagenesis (thermal breakdown) of organic compounds. Much of the shallow gas comes from biological activity on rocks high in organic material or sometimes by biological breakdown of oil. Deeper gas is formed after the temperature of the surrounding rock becomes too great to form oil and begins forming gas instead. Often this deep gas migrates upward into the same reservoir where oil is trapped. In other settings the gas is trapped in reservoirs below the oil and wells that reach these only produce natural gas. \n\nAnother important natural gas resource is called basin-center gas, and this type of resource consists of natural gas that is thought to be dissolved under high pressure in water in deep formations.  One of the largest gas reservoirs in Canada is this type of natural gas.
854363
Crude oils vary in their composition, but generally range around 20% gasoline and naphtha, 35% gas oil, 20% lube distillate, 20% residuum, and 5% light gasoline. Refinery processes turn low quality material into higher quality products. \n\nPlastic manufacturers use processes like refiners, or purchase products to produce the chemicals that are used in synthesizing plastics. Since crude oil contains many molecules, the industry breaks and builds molecules to fill the niche. I'll discuss just a portion of the most notable processes. \n\nFluid Catalytic Cracking breaks larger molecules into Gases, Gasoline, Gas oil, and Heavy bottoms. The product streams produced by the FCC contain unsaturated hydrocarbons referred to as olefins. The gases are separated and stored, sold, or used in subsequent processes. \n\nOf these gases produced, propene is used in the manufacture of cumene. For information regarding Cumene, see this website. There's a lot of information. http://www.aristechchem.com/products/cumene.htm \n\nThe other processes that are important are the reforming and alkylation processes. Reforming converts naphthenes into aromatics like benzene, toluene, xylenes, and alkylbenzenes. These chemicals have their roles in the plastics industry. If you visited the above websites, benzene and propene are the feeds for producing cumene. \n\nAlkylation builds larger molecules from smaller molecules. Typically, butenes are mixed with iso-butanes to produce branched chain hydorcarbon polymers called isoparaffins. \n\nIn the United States alone, production of polymers as long ago as 1981 was more than 24 million metric tons, exceeding in volume the production of steel, and is the basis for industries that employs more than 3.5 million people. So, what are polymers? \n\nPolymers are simply very large molecules (macromolecules) that are made up of smaller molecules (monomers) that can be linked together in various ways, resulting in a range of what we call microstructures (e.g., linear chains, branched chains, densely interconnected networks, and so on). Although natural polymers (cotton, wool, silk), have been used throughout recorded history, the first true synthetic polymers were produced relatively recently (in historical terms), at the start of the 20th century. Furthermore, the long chain nature of their chemical structure was not recognized until the 1920s. In the decades that followed, however, an astonishing range of new synthetic materials were quickly produced by polymer chemists, revolutionizing some older industries, like those based on rubber, paint, and natural fibers, and creating new ones associated with the production of plastic goods. Polymers are also a crucial component of other advanced technologies, such as those essential to the electronics industry, where polymers are an integral part of the chip and printed circuit production process. \n\nClearly, there is a broad range of industries that are based on polymer science and engineering. There are two categories of companies. The first consists of those chemical companies that actually make the resins; poly (ethylene), poly(propylene), poly(styrene), PVC, polyesters, nylons, etc. This part of the industry is dominated by large multinational companies with familiar names; Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide, Bayer, Exxon Mobil, Shell, etc. Most of the materials they now produce can be considered commodities and are sold to companies that constitute the second part of the industry, those firms that process polymers into films, fibers, paints, adhesives, composites (e.g., glass fiber reinforced polyesters) and the extraordinary range of plastic goods that are in modern society. The "chemical" part of the industry has from its inception been on the cutting edge of synthetic and chemical processing technology. Even today, it is still introducing new ways to make "old" polymers through the use of novel catalysts (e.g., metallocenes), which promise superior
742236
The atmosphere is 21% oxygen.  The process of separating the gases from each other is where the expense is.  They compress the gas and the cool it until it turns into a liquid.  Different gasses turn into a liquid at different temperatures.  Then they bottle it and ship it.