Severin Borenstein Quotes (22 Quotes)

The world oil price has risen rapidly and is very high today compared to the recent past, primarily because demand growth has been very rapid, and crude oil production capacity is constrained in the short run.

We should be putting that money into research and development to improve the technology.

The only way to save money is to shop around because even within cities there's still huge price difference, often 20 or more cents.

I think that's a big issue that a bankruptcy court is going to have to confront. What's the ongoing responsibility of the company and what's the legal liability in the contracts.

(Liquefied natural gas) can be brought into a port at well below what California is paying right now for natural gas, and what we anticipate paying for many years to come.

It could increase vastly, but it depends entirely on policy.

Clean coal does exist, but it's no more cost-effective than solar power. A 22 increase in funding is just not a Manhattan Project-type effort that we need.

It looked like money down a rat hole. I can certainly see why they'd be cautious now. Just because you're making an extra 35 a barrel doesn't mean you should be pouring that into exploration.

Most of this is the world oil market, and the world oil market is telling us the prices are very high because there is a real shortage.

The answer is pretty simple. We will never get to energy independence while we are using oil as the major fuel.

Next year, we'll quite likely have rates higher than this winter. The futures market for natural gas is telling us that these prices are not temporary.

The oil companies may be raising it a few cents, but that's not where the action is.

They make oil and they own oil, and the price of oil has gone up. Every barrel of oil they make is worth more.

They are just the lucky beneficiaries of the tight world oil market.

It's not like this is a gigantic change in the cost per mile of driving your car. That's why you won't see many people get rid of their cars or suddenly decide they can't drive to work anymore or will take the subway or whatever.

It's a world market for oil and that's why we have high gasoline prices.

They continued to build and complete plants after it was clear the market was down.

In general, you have to have a pretty serious market power concern before you go down this road of price controls, because the chances of causing shortages and causing gas lines are quite significant. Hawaii seems to have designed this so it's much less likely to happen, and Hawaii has a credible argument to be made that they face a significant market power problem.

There seems to be no political traction for reducing demand. Consumers don't want to hear about making any changes from the plentiful gasoline of the 1990s. And unfortunately, short of colonizing the Middle East ... there isn't a way back to that.

That's definitely bad news for the California gasoline market. We're going to have to wait and see how bad.

Unfortunately, sometimes you see big wealth transfers occur when something becomes scarce.

They make their money the same way you make money when you sell your house.