Interesting comparisons… is this illegal?
Friday 07 Mar 2008 | Posted By Patrick | Commentary
Here are some charts from GasBuddy.com; lets see if you can figure out where I’m getting at. Look at the charts and carefully look what 3 areas I’m charting (If you see Texas, it is simply used as a baseline because the state lacks a retailer that owns a large portion of the gas stations there.
Note: Speedway has a heavy footprint in these cities:
Can you tell which states here have more Speedway stores and which don’t have many?
Lets compare Grand Rapids (a Speedway dominated area) to two cities that HAVE Speedway locations, just not as high as percentage as Grand Rapids:
Some facts from Speedway.com:
73: Stores in Wisconsin
110: Stores in Illinois
228: Stores in Indiana
301: Stores in Michigan
444: Stores in Ohio
Make you own assumptions and leave a comment on what you think!
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Assuming these are industry-wide prices, not just Speedway, your “illegal” question seems justified, especially in light of the lockstep daily changes. Are you planning to pursue that?
aside: Doesn’t (or didn’t once) Marathon own Speedway? I believe Marathon was HQ’d in Indianapolis. I should’ve paid more attention…
And who supplies the gasoline? Aside from the “brand names” (who apparently all co-mingle their product in the same pipelines) who supplies gas to the “generic” pumps, like Meijer and Mom’n'Pop? Is it ALL the _same_ gasoline?
John
Keep in mind that states have a different tax structure, which is included in the price per gallon. For example, Michigan is 54.6 and Texas is 38.4 (State and Federal) according to http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/gasoline/upload/State-Motor-Fuel-Tax-Rates.pdf (July 2007)
That is a 16 cent difference.
Maybe you need to compare prices before taxes?
radez- I’m only using Texas as a reference- notice the smooth line Texas has compared to the up/down up/down of the other markets.
John- it is essentially the same gas, supplied by a pipeline that ends up near the lakeshore communities.
Yes, Ashland Petroleum = Marathon LLC =essentially owns Speedway. Headquarters are in Findlay, Ohio (thus the HUGE footprint in Ohio)
For others, the main point is how “jerky” the lines are compared to smooth lines.
We get huge price swings vs other cities that get a 5 cent hike vs 30.
You really need to get WOOD-TV to do a story on this, using those graphs and whatever else they can dig up. This is rediculous.
>> For others, the main point is how “jerky†the lines are compared to smooth lines.
We get huge price swings vs other cities that get a 5 cent hike vs 30. <<
Agreed–we see that here in Detroit as well. It’s a game: hike prices way up, then let them drift downward so the lower prices seem like a bargain…then nail us again for another hike.