I’ve told you before that I own Chevron stock.
It’s only about 100 shares, so it will never make me rich. But I’m using the dividends to buy more and I love watching the price rise.
Lately, though, I’ve had this sort of unsettled feeling, as if I’m doing something wrong. To be honest, I feel sort of dirty in a way. That hit me hard Friday morning, right before I started writing this column.
Scrolling the news wire, I noticed that Chevron’s first-quarter profits were up 49 percent from a year ago, a time when they were already at very high levels.
Chevron pulled in $4 billion in profits during the first three months of this year, prompting analyst Fadel Gheit of Oppenhemer &Co. to say this to the Associated Press: “All these companies have so much money, they don’t know what to do with it.”
Having spent $40 Thursday night to get three-quarters of a tank of gas, I have quite a few ideas about what Chevron can do with all its money. Several are printable.
I wrote a column a while back on some of the complex reasons that gas prices seem to keep going up. One of the them is that it’s expensive to build new oil refineries because of all the environmental regulations. Because of that, nobody is building them or has built one in many years, creating a shortage of refineries and causing problems when any of the existing ones are damaged or put out of operation for maintenance.
Shocking idea for Chevron, Exxon and everybody else with their hands in our pockets – take a fraction of the money you made during the last three months and build a refinery or two. Don’t whine about the environmental regulations making it too expensive, just build one.
As editor of a business section, I know that companies have to look out for shareholders and look for investing their spare cash in what will strengthen the company and bring the highest financial returns.
But Chevron, I’m telling you this: I am a shareholder, and I want you to build more refineries under the regulations that now exist. Help lower my gas prices. It could be a great public relations ploy to show people that you’re stepping up to do your part by improving supply and cutting prices.
The other thing I did before sitting down to write this column was to attend a meeting to plan our coverage of gas hitting a new high in the Puget Sound area of $3.01. That’s real money. I don’t know about you, but $3 makes me think about what I need to do to cut down on my truck travel.
Most stories these days suggest that people are angry about gas prices, but that they aren’t doing anything about it themselves.
That’s probably the biggest part of this gas price equation – prices aren’t going to drop until we reduce demand.
So this is my other challenge – to you.
Cut down on your gas usage so that demand doesn’t keep soaring and pushing up prices.
For myself, I’m going to start by lining up all my chores and either doing them together in one trip or trying to get them done on my way to and from work so I’m not covering the same ground twice. I also plan to do a better job of partnering up on fishing trips, rather than just meeting people at the lake or river.
A colleague who lives in Skagit County is looking at carpooling with another co-worker. They think they will each save about $25 a week on gas with very little inconvenience to their schedules.
It’s easy to point the finger at the oil companies – and I do because I think they need to help us out here. But we also need to take ownership of this problem ourselves and do what we can to lessen it.
Let’s tackle it.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459 or benbow@heraldnet.com.
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