My dad has told me about the gas shortages back in the 70's and 80's and people were running out of gas at all the stations. Prices were rising 50-60 cents a day. All the gas was getting allocated and that caused massive lines at all the pumps. It also caused a lot of stores to go out of business. He built his business up by himself with a couple cstores in Houston and then when the shortages hit he was able to buy up some closed down stores, which allowed him to use their allocation and put fuel into his best stores. Moral of the story, he was was able to take advantage of whatever cards he was dealt. Everyone else was too scared to even play. Now is a time to be positive and take advantage of the things that only us are ready for. I think its about to get a lot worse though
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The gasoline that is at stations, in trucks, and pretty far back in the supply line, was refined and purchased for distribution many weeks ago. Station owners just raise prices on the news they hear! I used to work at a grocery store, and the owner would have us re-stamp (long before bar codes :) ) the price of coffee when the news of "coffee prices are going up due to ______)" would be blasted by MSM (only media at the time). Then, when whatever was supposed to drive the price up subsided, he would keep the higher prices on the coffee long after that.
Actually the rack prices change daily and sometimes more than once a day. Taxes on top of the rack price are about 42 cents a gallon. So take the rack price, add 42 cents and then everything over that is profit
Yes, the multiple changes per day is further evidence of them charging based on news, rather than their cost. I guess the profit margin isn't high enough for one station to charge significantly less than others to get more business.
No I’m saying that the rack price is actual cost that the operators at the gas stations have to pay. Maybe the news and future barrel price does get involved when calculating the price but the actual costs do change and it’s done at the same time everyday. I’ll start posting the rack prices daily when I get them for the next few weeks
How could there be daily price changes, other than the owner deciding to change the price, for gasoline in underground tanks that are only filled every other week or so?
And yes the margin on fuel is basically nothing.