Mehdi Shahbazi (1942, Kermanshah, Iran – November, 2007, California, USA) was a self-made American business man who emigrated to United States in the 1960s from his native Iran. Over the years, Mr. Shahbazi embraced the American dream and work ethics, and made it a reality in his life, coming to own and operate a few gas station franchises in California.
After having become convinced over the years, especially after the debacle that followed hurricane Katrina, that the major oil companies were in effect conspiring to gouge consumers and artificially raise prices at the pumps, Mr. Shahbazi began a controversial, and ultimately fatal, public protest of the oil majors from his Shell Oil franchise. His method included the prominent posting of signs on his station's grounds that openly declared his views and directed interested customers to "see the cashier" for further information, which included 2 page fliers detailing his views, complaints, and ultimately his concern both for the consumer, and the societal order (which he felt would not withstand the $5 per gallon price that he insisted was the predetermined price set for gas by the majors).
His protest consequently resulted in legal battles with the Shell Oil Company (US), and ultimately his death, at the age of 65, due to the liver failure that apparently resulted from his 4 month liquid fast. He had previously lost his home, and started fasting during the later stages of his battles in the courtroom before losing his business.
"At his former Marina station - where two years ago he posted a sign that read "Consumers' pain is Big Oil's unearned profit!" - customers have erected a memorial of flowers, cards and signs proclaiming love and appreciation. "He was kind, wise and generous beyond imagination," said Jeffrey Cohen, a Salinas physician who met Shahbazi as a patient and remained a friend for 32 years. "I want people to know that he wasn't crazy. He used what he felt was the last non-violent method of protest that he could muster. He was expressing what we all feel." [1]
Standard Oil Co. was an American oil-producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world at its height. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a landmark case, that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly.
A convenience store, convenience shop, or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, tobacco products, over-the-counter drugs, toiletries, newspapers and magazines. In some jurisdictions, convenience stores are licensed to sell alcohol, although many such jurisdictions limit such beverages to those with relatively low alcoholic content such as beer and wine. Such stores may also offer money order and wire transfer services, along with the use of a fax machine or photocopier for a small per-copy cost. Some also offer to sell tickets or recharge a smart card, like the OPUS card in Montreal. They differ from general stores and village shops in that they are not in a rural location and are used as a convenient supplement to larger stores.
A fast food restaurant, also known as a quick service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Gulf Oil was a major global oil company from 1901 until March 15, 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh.
A filling station is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline and diesel fuel. A typical filling station can also be known as a fueling station or gas station, gasoline stand or SS (Japan), petrol pump or petrol bunk, garage, petrol station, service station, servo (Australia), fuel station (Israel) or petroleum station.
An energy crisis is any significant bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In literature, it often refers to one of the energy sources used at a certain time and place, in particular, those that supply national electricity grids or those used as fuel in industrial development and population growth have led to a surge in the global demand for energy in recent years. In the 2000s p, this new demand — together with Middle East tension, the falling value of the US dollar, dwindling oil reserves, concerns over peak oil, and oil price speculation — triggered the 2000s energy crisis, which saw the price of oil reach an all-time high of $147.30 a barrel in 2008
The 1979Oil Crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four percent, the oil markets' reaction raised the price of crude oil drastically over the next 12 months, more than doubling it to $39.50 per barrel. The spike in price caused fuel shortages and long lines at gas stations similar to the 1973 oil crisis.
The National Energy Program (NEP) was an energy policy of the Canadian federal government from 1980 to 1985. Created under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau by Energy Minister Marc Lalonde in 1980, the program was administered by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Introduced following the oil crises and stagflation of the 1970s, the NEP proved to be a highly controversial policy initiative that pitted economic nationalism and federal aspirations of energy self-sufficiency against provincial jurisdiction with hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue at stake. The result was a dispute that sparked intense opposition and anger in Canada's West, particularly in Alberta, and the rise of the Reform Party, a development that would shape Canadian politics for years to come.
Shell Oil Company is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, a transnational corporation "oil major" of Anglo-Dutch origins, which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 80,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. Its U.S. headquarters are in Houston, Texas. Shell Oil Company, including its consolidated companies and its share in equity companies, is one of America's largest oil and natural gas producers, natural gas marketers, gasoline marketers and petrochemical manufacturers.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume of natural gas in the gaseous state (at standard conditions for temperature and pressure).
Peak oil is the year when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline. As of 2021, peak oil forecasts range from 2019 to 2040, depending on economics and how governments respond to global warming. It is often confused with oil depletion; however, whereas depletion refers to a period of falling reserves and supply, peak oil refers to the point of maximum production. The concept of peak oil is often credited to geologist M. King Hubbert whose 1956 paper first presented a formal theory. Peak coal was in 2013 and peak oil is forecast to occur before peak gas.
Centrica plc is a British multinational energy and services company with its headquarters in Windsor, Berkshire. Its principal activity is the supply of electricity and gas to consumers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It also provides energy solutions and trading to businesses worldwide.
Jiffy Lube is an American brand of automotive oil change specialty shops founded in Utah, United States, in 1971. It has been a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell since 2002, and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Big Oil is a name used to describe the world's six or seven largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors. The term emphasizes their economic power and influence on politics, particularly in the United States. Big Oil is often associated with the fossil fuels lobby and also used to refer to the industry as a whole in a pejorative or derogatory manner.
Shell to Sea is an Irish organisation based in the parish of Kilcommon in Erris, County Mayo.
The usage and pricing of gasoline results from factors such as crude oil prices, processing and distribution costs, local demand, the strength of local currencies, local taxation, and the availability of local sources of gasoline (supply). Since fuels are traded worldwide, the trade prices are similar. The price paid by consumers largely reflects national pricing policy. Most countries impose taxes on gasoline (petrol), which causes air pollution and climate change; whereas a few, such as Venezuela, subsidize the cost. Some country's taxes do not cover all the negative externalities, that is they do not make the polluter pay the full cost. Western countries have among the highest usage rates per person. The largest consumer is the United States.
Petroleum in the United States has been a major industry since shortly after the oil discovery in the Oil Creek area of Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. The industry includes exploration, production, processing (refining), transportation, and marketing of natural gas and petroleum products. As of 2019, the United States is the world's largest oil producer. The leading oil-producing area in the United States in 2019 was Texas, followed by the offshore federal zone of the Gulf of Mexico, North Dakota and New Mexico.
Royal Dutch Shell plc, commonly known as Shell, is a British-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, and incorporated in the United Kingdom as a public limited company. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and, measured by 2020 revenues, the fifth-largest company in the world, the largest based in Europe, and the largest not based in either China or the United States. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Shell was ranked as the 21st-largest public company in the world. Shell was first in the 2013 Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies; in that year its revenues were equivalent to 84% of the Dutch national $556 billion GDP.
For the economic effects refer to Economy of Iran.