Twixlen said:
Cool chart.
In high school (admittedly, forever ago), I worked at a gas station (that also sold fuel oil, John Deere tractors, furnaces & hot water tanks as well as the service for both), and every evening we got a phone call that was the price of our gas & oil products. For the gas that came out of the pumps, our price was between 1/2 a cent to a full cent per gallon higher than what it cost us to buy it. And we were maybe only a penny or two off the other stations, in other parts of the county, and state.
So, not basing the price of gasoline off the price that was paid it must be a newer practice.
in rural areas OR when the retail market is tight price is set by delivery plus a profit margin
in cities though where all the fuel comes from one tank farm and the companies are regional or national and buy their fuel in huge lots off the futures market the daily retail price versus delivery price typically has a pretty wide spread
Wholesale gasoline right now is somewhere around $2.70-$2.80 a gallon, add tax here in Ohio and you are up to $3.13-$3.23, then add delivery charge which isn't much cause most regional companies have their own trucks and drivers and the actual end sale profit is easily 10-30 cents a gallon at times. Might sound like a lot but by % it isn't. Selling gasoline isn't where the profit is, it's the high profit items inside the store like pop, snacks, hot dogs, coffee etc etc We rape people on those items. Maintaining a gas station ain't cheap either. There's tons of equipment involved. Convenience stores though are easy money. That's also why certified, longfeld, and other regional oil co's attach Subways or Wendy's or whatever fast food places to their stores, it's additional profit and co-located. Gasoline just gets you in the door.
raise the price on thursday thru sunday to stabilize your daily sales #'s and you can see often times a 20-30 cent a gallon spread over a week