Of roads, ruts and re-investment
Hi to all,
First off...
Sorry about missing posting last week. I was out of cell and internet range!
Here’s what I have for this
week’s price changes:
·
Heating and stove
oils to increase by 1.03 cents per litre.
·
Diesel to
increase by 1.2 cents per litre
·
Regular gasoline
to decrease by 1.3 cents per litre, and…
·
Reformulated
blend show just a 1/10th of a cent decrease
Market highlights
·
The Canadian
dollar continues to lose value against its US counterpart. The Canuck buck now
is almost five cents less than the US greenback, losing almost four cents
against the US dollar in the last two weeks.
·
US Energy
Information Administration inventory report last week indicated a zero
gain/loss in oil inventories, while gasoline inventories reported a gain of 3.7
million barrels. Distillate supplies also increased.
·
Halifax’s Imperial
refinery is set to close and that may put supply at risk. Ready for more
reciprocal sales arrangements where Big Oil shares supply? Not good for
consumers in unregulated markets!
While I’m at it…
While some media have been reporting that the number of tires stored in
Argentia are getting smaller, are we throwing away an opportunity to recycle
these tires in a better fashion? Burning them doesn’t seem to be a great “end
use” of something that consumers are paying recycling fees for, and besides
that, we, as taxpayers, are also sending them to Quebec at our expense. I think
government estimated some $6 million to ship them out of province.
Some time ago, government announced that they would send them to Quebec where I
believe they are used to fuel a concrete plant in that province. Is that a
great way to recycle, or do we expect more for our recycling dollar? I mean, do
you, as a consumer paying recycling fees, expect a better use out of a product
that you want to see recycled?
Again I started reading up on the topic, and I keep asking myself why other
jurisdictions come to better uses for recycling of tires than we have here. I
keep reading about the costs savings for road construction and maintenance and
the rising cost of asphalt for new roads. I keep reading about cost savings
that the addition of recycled tires can bring to my own province, which brings
me to why we are shipping them out when we have so much of a need for ongoing
road construction and maintenance.
God knows they could use an experiment on rubber asphalt concrete (RAC) roads
in Labrador and along the coast, and what a bang we could have with our buck!
Call
it an investment!
That’s it for now!
Regards,
George Murphy
Group researcher/Member
Consumer Group for Fair Gas
Prices
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