I can see clearly now...

I've been antsy to fill my car up to capacity for a few weeks now as crude's price retreated from its all time-high. I will only put in like 10-15 bucks, sometimes less, because I follow the futures prices intently.

If I know prices will come down in a few days, why fill it up all the way?

Now that crude has somewhat hit a plateau, on Saturday, I filled up my ride at $3.199/gal. Cheapest gas in the H.O.U. that I have seen in quite sometime, so I decided to top it off.

12 gallons = $38.39. First time in well over 4 months that filling up the Silver Streaker cost under 40 bones.

$3.199/gal = $134.358/bbl. Friday's crude close at $114.59, pits a $19.768/bbl profit margin. I know that its futures price and not exactly what the retailer or the refiner paid for it.

Now what really makes me wonder is at what cost did that particular Chevron buy its crude at? Where did it come from? What API grade was it? How much ethanol is in it? What was the cost of the ethanol?

Well, questions asked, but no immediate answers are available. No wonder the American public doesn't "get it" about the oil market.

Name one other product that is literally unseen by the consumer and goes through the same process as crude oil does: literally is sucked out of the ground under miles and miles of dirt and possibly a shitload of water, pumped into a giant tanker or though a pipeline, fired into a distillation tower, blasted through a cracker, swimming through miles of spaghetti-like pipelines in the refinery, transferred to another giant tank, mixed with corn booze, put into a truck and driven to a station, hosed to underground tanks, then sent up through a retail pump and flushed into your gas tank?

There is a lack of transparency in the oil market. But is it because the physical oil itself cannot be seen? Or is it that the paper traded on oil isn't the transparent part?