Friday 18 Jul 2008 | Posted By Patrick | Commentary
THIS POST EDITED AT 4:20PM EDT 7/18/08
Speedway Station at Michigan and Fuller STILL charging $4.25 as of Friday mid-morning!
[IMAGE: Cost to large branded station (AS LOW AS) $3.67 VS Retail Price, as high as $4.25]
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You know, the one thing that I’ve always liked about this site is that you guys have always done an excellent job of being fair about the fact that retailers rarely have much of a markup on gas. I have to say that I’m pretty disappointed in this posting. You know that it is EXTREMELY unusual for there to be this much of a spread between retail and current wholesale prices.
When prices go up, we rarely go over a 20 cent markup. The only times that markups get above 30 cents is when wholesale prices drop huge amounts in a few days like they did this week. Other than after wholesale prices crashed after the hurricanes in 2005, I really can’t think of any other time in the last 10 years that prices have dropped 40 cents in 3 days.
There are a LOT more days that stations have a 5 cent margin than a 50 cent margin. I would guess that at least a third of the stations in the state paid over $4.059 for their last delivery. I would also guess that almost every station still at $4.259 is one of them. You can’t blame them for needing a delivery on the wrong day.
If you really want to criticize someone, at $4.259 the State is making 42 cents per gallon with no investment. Plus the credit card companies are making 11 cents per gallon, also without an investment. Unlike both of them, retailers are still averaging the 10-15 cent markup at $4.259 as they were at $1.259.
This is more targeted at the chain stores that are preventing from a larger scale reduction in prices… hence the picture. I do feel for the smaller stations that are stuck with gasoline, but its the chain stations that HAD set $4.25 as a re-hike amount the DAY the market was dropping.