"This morning I filled my car with gas, costing almost six dollars a gallon.. My car is a Mini Cooper I bought years ago, partly because it wasn’t a gas-guzzler. Now it’s guzzling dollars.
....
Big oil has hit a gusher. Even before Vladimir Putin’s war, oil prices had begun to rise due to the recovery in global demand and tight inventories.

Last year, when Americans were already struggling to pay their heating bills and fill up their gas tanks, the biggest oil companies (Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exxon) posted profits totaling $75bn. This year, courtesy of Putin, big oil is on the way to a far bigger bonanza.

How are the oil companies using this windfall? I can assure you they’re not investing in renewables. They’re not even increasing oil production.

As Chevron’s top executive, Mike Wirth, said in September, “We could afford to invest more” but “the equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that.”

Translated: Wall Street says the way to maximize profits is to limit supply and push up prices instead.

So they’re buying back their own stock in order to give their stock prices even more of a boost. Last year they spent $38bn on stock buybacks – their biggest buyback spending spree since 2008. This year, thanks largely to Putin, the oil giants are planning to buy back at least $22bn more.

Make no mistake. This is a direct redistribution from consumers who are paying through the nose at the gas pump to big oil’s investors and top executives (whose compensation packages are larded with shares of stock and stock options).

Though it’s seldom discussed in the media, lower-income earners and their families bear the brunt of the burden of higher gas prices. "

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/20/big-oil-gas-prices-windfall-tax-russia-ukraine

On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 5:13:14 AM UTC, David P. wrote:
> ltlee1 wrote:
> > Big oil has hit a gusher. Even before Putin’s war, oil prices had begun to rise due to the recovery in global demand and tight inventories..
> >
> > Last year, when Americans were already struggling to pay their heating bills and fill up their gas tanks, the biggest oil companies (Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exxon) posted profits totaling $75bn. This year, courtesy of Putin, big oil is on the way to a far bigger bonanza.
> >
> > How are the oil companies using this windfall? I can assure you they’re not investing in renewables. They’re not even increasing oil production.
> >
> > As Chevron’s top executive, Mike Wirth, said in September, “We could afford to invest more” but “the equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that.”
> > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/20/big-oil-gas-prices-windfall-tax-russia-ukraine
> ---------------------
> Why U.S. Oil and Gas Producers Aren’t Solving the Energy Crisis
> By Paul H. Tice, March 15, 2022, WSJ
>
> First and foremost, U.S. shale got a wake-up call about its
> business model in 2020. That’s when the combination of an
> OPEC+ oil-market-share battle and pandemic lockdowns briefly
> turned crude oil prices negative and decimated the energy
> sector, driving more than 100 North American oil and gas
> companies into bankruptcy by year end.
>
> The main risk to the industry over the next decade is not
> the potential for oil and gas demand to go down because of
> the global energy transition away from fossil fuels. It is
> the high likelihood of more energy supply-chain bottlenecks
> created by government officials. A supply-constrained scenario
> would be bullish for oil prices, giving producers even more
> incentive to keep hydrocarbon reserves in the ground now to
> produce them at higher realized prices down the road. As seen
> by the four legally paralyzed years of the Trump administration,
> even if Republicans regain the White House in 2024, not much
> would change with regard to the inexorable march toward 2030,
> the year of the climate rapture set by the United Nations.
>
> U.S. energy companies have begun to wise up to the threat
> that the theory of man-made climate change poses to the
> industry. Since the Paris Agreement’s signing in 2015, the
> global goal of decreasing carbon emissions has provided moral
> justification for an all-out regulatory assault.
>
> The latest front is the sustainable-investment movement
> sweeping Wall Street, which has climate action as its top
> environmental, social and governance objective. U.S. and
> European financial regulators are pushing through mandatory
> reporting standards on sustainability. This is the first step
> toward screening and excluding politically incorrect industries
> such as oil and gas from investment portfolios. As the intertwined
> climate-change and sustainability movements gain momentum between
> now and 2030, the lending and capital markets are likely to become
> more hostile toward traditional energy.
>
> U.S. shale companies will need to ensure their ability to self-
> fund from operations and run with less balance-sheet debt to
> reduce their dependence on financing from the banking system
> and institutional investors. Consequently, corporate sustaina-
> bility doctrine provides another strong argument for U.S. energy
> companies to maintain the status quo of slow to no production
> growth and to continue living within cash flow over the long term.
>
> Ironically, all the defensive measures now being taken by the
> U.S. shale industry make it more attractive—and sustainable—from
> an investment perspective. On top of production and spending
> discipline and stronger energy commodity prices, some shale
> players are merging to build critical mass, both in operating
> scale and financial-market capitalization.
>
> So why aren’t American oil and gas companies producing more
> barrels to help tamp down oil and gasoline prices during a
> global market shock when domestic inflation is rampant? The
> answer, as with everything that revolves around climate change,
> is complicated.
>
> Mr. Tice works in investment management and is an adjunct
> professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-american-producers-arent-solving-energy-crisis-price-hike-rise-oil-gas-wells-fracking-shale-lng-climate-change-green-russia-11647354744
> --
Of course solving people's problems high gas price is not big oil's responsibility. And according to the WSJ article, they could not.
Still, the issue at hand is whether the US government should step in. If the US government chooses to step in, windfall tax is the
obvious approach.

On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 8:17:56 PM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 5:13:14 AM UTC, David P. wrote:
> > ltlee1 wrote:
> > > Big oil has hit a gusher. Even before Putin’s war, oil prices had begun to rise due to the recovery in global demand and tight inventories.
> > >
> > > Last year, when Americans were already struggling to pay their heating bills and fill up their gas tanks, the biggest oil companies (Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exxon) posted profits totaling $75bn. This year, courtesy of Putin, big oil is on the way to a far bigger bonanza.
> > >
> > > How are the oil companies using this windfall? I can assure you they’re not investing in renewables. They’re not even increasing oil production.
> > >
> > > As Chevron’s top executive, Mike Wirth, said in September, “We could afford to invest more” but “the equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that..”
> > > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/20/big-oil-gas-prices-windfall-tax-russia-ukraine
> > ---------------------
> > Why U.S. Oil and Gas Producers Aren’t Solving the Energy Crisis
> > By Paul H. Tice, March 15, 2022, WSJ
> >
> > First and foremost, U.S. shale got a wake-up call about its
> > business model in 2020. That’s when the combination of an
> > OPEC+ oil-market-share battle and pandemic lockdowns briefly
> > turned crude oil prices negative and decimated the energy
> > sector, driving more than 100 North American oil and gas
> > companies into bankruptcy by year end.
> >
> > The main risk to the industry over the next decade is not
> > the potential for oil and gas demand to go down because of
> > the global energy transition away from fossil fuels. It is
> > the high likelihood of more energy supply-chain bottlenecks
> > created by government officials. A supply-constrained scenario
> > would be bullish for oil prices, giving producers even more
> > incentive to keep hydrocarbon reserves in the ground now to
> > produce them at higher realized prices down the road. As seen
> > by the four legally paralyzed years of the Trump administration,
> > even if Republicans regain the White House in 2024, not much
> > would change with regard to the inexorable march toward 2030,
> > the year of the climate rapture set by the United Nations.
> >
> > U.S. energy companies have begun to wise up to the threat
> > that the theory of man-made climate change poses to the
> > industry. Since the Paris Agreement’s signing in 2015, the
> > global goal of decreasing carbon emissions has provided moral
> > justification for an all-out regulatory assault.
> >
> > The latest front is the sustainable-investment movement
> > sweeping Wall Street, which has climate action as its top
> > environmental, social and governance objective. U.S. and
> > European financial regulators are pushing through mandatory
> > reporting standards on sustainability. This is the first step
> > toward screening and excluding politically incorrect industries
> > such as oil and gas from investment portfolios. As the intertwined
> > climate-change and sustainability movements gain momentum between
> > now and 2030, the lending and capital markets are likely to become
> > more hostile toward traditional energy.
> >
> > U.S. shale companies will need to ensure their ability to self-
> > fund from operations and run with less balance-sheet debt to
> > reduce their dependence on financing from the banking system
> > and institutional investors. Consequently, corporate sustaina-
> > bility doctrine provides another strong argument for U.S. energy
> > companies to maintain the status quo of slow to no production
> > growth and to continue living within cash flow over the long term.
> >
> > Ironically, all the defensive measures now being taken by the
> > U.S. shale industry make it more attractive—and sustainable—from
> > an investment perspective. On top of production and spending
> > discipline and stronger energy commodity prices, some shale
> > players are merging to build critical mass, both in operating
> > scale and financial-market capitalization.
> >
> > So why aren’t American oil and gas companies producing more
> > barrels to help tamp down oil and gasoline prices during a
> > global market shock when domestic inflation is rampant? The
> > answer, as with everything that revolves around climate change,
> > is complicated.
> >
> > Mr. Tice works in investment management and is an adjunct
> > professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
> >
> > https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-american-producers-arent-solving-energy-crisis-price-hike-rise-oil-gas-wells-fracking-shale-lng-climate-change-green-russia-11647354744
> > --
> Of course solving people's problems high gas price is not big oil's responsibility. And according to the WSJ article, they could not.
> Still, the issue at hand is whether the US government should step in. If the US government chooses to step in, windfall tax is the
> obvious approach.

The oil and gas companies are making a huge profits from the rise in gasoline price. They bought cheap and stocked them and on paper the stock value is very high, and the revenues from gasoline sold is also very high. Henceforth, they are not going to lower their prices at any time soon. They want to fill their tummy of their stakeholder's share price and dividends to the brim of the gullet. Therefore, unless there a policy action on them, otherwise they will not do anything to reduce their prices. This is fair and square for them as it is market forces of the current supply and demand situation across the world and not only in US only.