Comment on the July 16 prediction: No price hikes, so CORRECT.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 6:00PM: So what do we do here? Since the last price reset on July 1, wholesale prices have fallen more than 20 cents a gallon, while retail prices … well … it depends. Gas is selling for $2.69 a gallon at Wealthy and Division in downtown Grand Rapids. A few miles away, in Wyoming (MI), $2.12 — that’s a difference of 57 cents! It is $2.57 on Lake Michigan Drive, but the stations I watch in Fort Wayne have been stuck in the mid $2.30’s for three days, while my estimate of the price to retailers is $2.41. So, for some stations, we are far enough above the price to retailers that there shouldn’t be a hike. For others, they are selling at such a loss that I don’t know how they stay in business. I wouldn’t be surprised if Speedway reset the whole system to $2.59 on Thursday. -EA
Heheh.
$2.59 would be a welcome DROP in average price here.
I’d like to see Turbos reaction to $2.89 gas with spot at $1.75 and WTI Crude right about $49 bucks a barrel lol
He should come to Cincy.
We have stations at that price now. The Highest Price board is all $2.899 and up.
While there are stations in the $2.20s here in Indy, most of the ones I see daily have been stuck in high $2.30s to low $2.40s (excluding Turbo having to deal with Carmel… but hey, fishers is in the $2.30s!) for nearly a week now, maybe ticking down a few pennies at most. I have enjoyed it while it lasted, but honestly I have to agree that I don’t understand how they’ve been able to sustain this without a spike for this long now. And unfortunately I have to make a drive to Fort Wayne tomorrow so it looks like I’ll be having to run on fumes all weekend as I wait for things to drop back (assuming there is a spike today).
Jrunner: This morning, there are just a couple stations in the 2-Teens. Nice, not where I travel, but I do get past some in the low and mid $2.20’s. I’m even wondering if this would be a week with a Saturday hike. So far, the price spread is way out of normal, somethings got to give soon, I would think.
Wyoming, MI: Family Fare @ $2.09/gal. Second cheapest station in USA.
Patrick, I noticed the same thing this morning and the lowest is a cash only station somewhere in South Carolina.
Oops, looks like they just went back up to $2.12.
Turbo warned y’all that zone pricing is the real issue, not spikes….
Since we’re speaking about ourselves in the third person for some reason…
Ren isn’t seeing any upward movement in Indy yet. It’s as cheap as $2.209 in Franklin, and only eight stations above $2.599.
I wonder of Cincy set up a new sister ciy partnership with Los Angeles to include sharing their gas prices lol
Since there don’t appear to be any supply issues specific to Cincy, I wonder if “demand” is higher in our city, compared to the rest of Ohio. Enough to justify a 13-cent premium.
/sarc
I would expect that the reason you’re paying more (and I’m half surprised you’re not paying more than that) is that you have to use reformulated gas in the Cincy area (along with Louisville) which I’m guessing due to the hills if the maps I’ve seen in the past are any indication. Just be glad that you’re not paying Chicago premium prices? The rest of Ohio uses conventional gas (except on some maps I’ve seen north of cincy up to Dayton using a RVP 7.8 blend? Patrick would probably know more about this though.
I linked to a gasbuddy chart, but it didn’t post the message. Chart shows that up until a month or so ago, Cincy was always within a penny or two of the Ohio average.
As for Louisville – they are currently FIVE cents cheaper than Cincy, 5 cents above the KY average. Taxes in KY are only TWO cents lower than OH (44 vs 46 cents).
Not sure your theory holds water.
Now we’re worried about an unexplained 3-cent difference.
Prices are nearly a full DOLLAR cheaper than the same time last year, and some people are still complaining about miniscule anomalies.
Good Lord.
The 3c premium for Cincy is well worth it given they have Jungle Jim’s, IKEA, Parts Express, USAF Museum, Skyline Chili, and UC DAAP 🙂
Ren, you know darn well we are not worried about a 3-cent premium. Stop trying to twist things. It’s not working. The original question was why is Cincy 13 cents above the Ohio average, when historically, we are within a penny or two, one way or the other. That question has not been answered.
Nothing has changed that would warrant the premium(no supply disruptions and no other changes).
Ren, you are conveniently omitting the fact, that a year ago, oil was $100, not $49. Gas had BETTER be cheaper than a year ago. So, what’s your point?
Cincinnati market forces at work Ren might say?? Don’t forget about the Red Squirrel sandwich shop in Cincy Turbo! Meanwhile, crude in the $48.6X range….droooooppppp baby!
I still stand by my earlier comment that it has more to do with Cincy using reformulated gasoline. Compare the same period last summer (mid June through mid August), and the gap was even greater with Cincy considerably higher in general when compared to places like Columbus, OH or Akron. Remember, there was talk about a month or so ago about the racks running out of fuel in Ohio. So, more than likely the refinery production finally caught up and conventional fuel, which was running higher as a result, has fallen back to “normal”. Again, you’re probably not going to know for sure though because the industry tends to hold their cards fairly close, but again, look at things 18 months out…
The Red Fox, downtown blows the Squirrel out of the water (and to the refineries, heheh).
The BLT has literally an entire package of bacon on it.
Jrunner if this is true we are sill paying for the Summer of 1983. That was one of the hottest summers we ever had in Cincinnati with several day above 100 degrees. The EPA was monitoring the air quality and dinged us because our air quality is so poor in those mid-Summer weeks. I thought by now they would rescind it or at lease realize we had many mild Summers since 1983. I’m not one to badmouth the EPA but in this case they are wrong.
You forgot Ron’s Roost in Bridgetown. They have the best fried chicken anywhere and the hot slaw and sauerbraten is to die for as well.
Looks like a lot of stations in Wyoming went up to $2.43/$2.45 gal today. Glad I got it for $2.09/gal yesterday.
This morning in Fort Wayne, I filled up for $2.21, and drove past a station asking for $2.56 earlier in the short 15 mile trip. I can’t remember such a price variation in this town. To be sure, the cheap gas was at local chain. One guy owns about 7 convenience stores from Marathon to Shell to Phillips 66. And the expensive gas was a no name independent. It makes me wonder if the pricing difference has something to do with inventory and contracted deliveries?
London, Ohio now has the lowest gas in the U.S. $1.879. Some gas war going on.
Spot at $1.68 with, sw Ohio at $2.63.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
I can only think of one reason:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/23/squirrel-gets-drunk-causes-hundreds-of-dollars-in-damage/
LOL. That’d be about right, a squirrel in the UK causing our prices to go up. What a lush.
Prices are all over the place. The invisible hand of the market is playing faster than Eric Clapton. Anywhere from 2.05 next to Long’s Bakery in west side Indy ($.57 per donut and top 20 ranked donut in the US) all the way to 2.69…
But no official spike during race weekend?
Bad news in Indy. It’s been 23 days without a spike now. I bought a full tank at $1.939/gallon using a 30-cent Kroger discount.
These long-term drops are frustrating. But I’m sure there will be a spike soon enough, and then we can get back to more legitimate complaining.
The gas war in London, Ohio must be over. I looked at the Gas Buddy map and these poor people are saddled with paying a paltry sum of $2.09/gal now. West of Cleveland is now the epicenter of the lowest prices in Ohio, now at $1.92 at several locations.
On the other hand Cincinnati. HA! The best we can do is $2.43 in the Hamilton/Fairfield area or $2.42 at a station in Southeast Indiana. The best I can say it at least we are headed in the right direction.
OK, I got a question…..When the spike comes, will it be 30 cents over the low guys like the $2.10’s or the normal independents that are at $2.34. Kinda Curious about that one.
The low’s here in Indiana are under 2 dollars a gallon. We got to set a spike amount record at some point. If you figure 2.69 as the target that will be 70+ cents forthe lows.
After all, it’s market forces that cause a product to jump in price by 25% overnight 🙂
It’s more complex than that of course since 2.69 is not a market price any more than 1.98 is at this point. But honest pricing never hurt anyone.
I get the feeling that the 2.30’s are really where the true cost to retailers is and the low’s are part of some larger ‘plan’. I don’t see any independents leading the low pricing list, in Indianapolis it’s all Marathons and Speedways and the occasional Mobil or Shell. Casey’s is at 2.09.
At times like this it seems Speedway/Marathon are the ones to do the severe cuts, probably depending on inside revenue from enhanced traffic to keep profits reasonable. Not a bad business plan actually, but if it comes at the expense of irritating many more people than they get as customers it may need to be reconsidered.
That $2.43 is less than 3 miles from the house. Guess where I got gas this morning??
Only $10, enough to get me for 3 days. Not filling up at these unnecessarily high prices.
I drove to Chicago to pick up study abroad kid. Indy at 1.98, northwest Indiana at 2.60, Chicago at 2.99-3.25.
All hail the invisible hand.
So now we’re ignoring the well known and blatant differences between doing business in places like Indy and Chicago. There’s nothing invisible about it.
We can’t keep holding your hand and explaining these things over and over, so I won’t try. Just please tell us you dropped that student off with somebody else…
Why no comments on how there are quite a few “Greedways” out there that must be losing $.30-$.40 per gallon of gas right now?
I drove to Northern Indiana over the weekend, and saw a lot of variation. Saw $2.59 at Indiana 28 and US31, Kokomo is at $1.98. Farther north, Rochester is at $2.55, Plymouth, just 20 miles away, was at $2.29. There are plenty of factors at play. The price to deliver is different. Facilities costs, location, traffic, competition, they all factor in. Chicago has at least 17 cents higher price because they use RBOB, as does Northwest Indiana.
Yesterday afternoon, most speedways in Fort Wayne, were still around the $2.30’s, most small chain stores were too. But get this, within 3 blocks, was a $2.56 independent and a $2.05 Shell. The town is rampant with examples similar. This is very unusual.
The Greater Cincinnati are has yet to have a station under $2.40. The margins over Chicago spot are as thick as the late Chris Farley’s stomach.
Let the game of semantics begin.
I noticed a few stations going from 1.98 to 2.03 (micro spike) and a couple to 2.39… Probably want to avoid a huge 1.98 to 2.69+ free market punch 🙂
Areas of OH use 7.8 RVP psi (Butler, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Greene, Hamilton, Miami, Montgomery, Warren) while the rest use 9.0 RVP. Areas of Kentucky use RFG.
In addition, Ohio has received a waiver under Clean Air Act 211(c)(4)(C) to adopt a state fuel program, more stringent than federal requirements, into the federally-approved State Implementation Plan (SIP). Ohio’s fuel program may also define a volatility level and compliance date for refiners and/or terminals different than the compliance date for retailers.
Are we seeing wildcat price hikes? No 1.98s to be found in the kingdom. But no system wide spike either, more like “what them guys in corporate is doing”…
Anybody curious as I am as to wether we see a re-alignment of price matching, and spiking at the end/beginning of the month here? At any rate, this last month has shown us some plausable ideas, any one or combination may be true:
1) There is a great range in what stations and chains pay for their bulk gasoline
2) There is a great wide range in what stations and chains are willing to “lose” on gasoline to make their profit inside.
3) The lengths that some chains would to to rid themselves of the competition
4) What pricing might look like without the lock-step pricing and rocketing
5) That some chaiins and stations may have some really well priced contracted deliveries.
On 2011, Speedway got out of the Minnesota market by selling their SuperAmerica stations to Northern Tier Energy, who in turn was bought by Western Refining in 2013. A guy who inspired me to start taking numbers for Indiana in 2008 is still taking down numbers everyday, and registering spikes. Here’s his graph for last month:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~inman009/html/TCGPtrends.html
Here is the GasBuddy forum page he updates regularly:
http://www.twincitiesgasprices.com/Forum_MSG.aspx?master=1&category=1162&topic=310514&page_no=1&FAV=N
I didn’t expect spikes to go away there overnight, but I would have thought 4 years later they would be gone. Makes me wonder if it isn’t Speedway, but some other reason for spikes here in the Midwest.
I have noticed for some time that in Fort Wayne Speedway is not the first to spike. It is as though ALL STATIONS know that today is the day, and locally, Lassus Handy Dandy puts out the higher priced placards literally ten minutes prior.
I believe there is something to the Speedway Method that all stations benefit from and learn and can do on their own. Speedway just institutionalized it first.
TimmP/Bill…
Happens in some IL cities where Speedway once had a presence, but no longer does. Usually there is a player with a large # of stations, for example Circle K in Champaign-Urbana. Perhaps they learned from Speedway. But St. Louis has spikes, and Speedway was not there, but Quik Trip usually gets the blame.
SA…Speedway’s successor in the Twin Cities has recently morphed to somewhat a flatter price curve.
Family Express has started a spike to 2.49 in La Porte County and 2.69 in Lake and Porter Counties.
Figure Speedway will spike to $2.599 in Ohio between today and Monday. Plan on cashing in some Kroger points and filling up both cars for $1.369/gallon today.
I figured it might happen close to change of the month. So I got mine on the way into work this morning. Speedway, at least here in Fort Wayne, has not been within 10 cents of the low price leaders this last many days.