An Early Christmas Present?

Looking over the numbers for today and margins are starting to get pretty skinny in Ohio. Retail averages have dropped all week as had Chicago CBOB prices… until today. We’re currently sitting right down on the Spike Line in Ohio. I’m looking for a price reset as soon as Friday morning to about $2.099. Hedge your bets and top off before that. I haven’t calculated the Spike Lines exactly for Indiana or Michigan, but just a quick survey indicates that they are in about the same position.

Updated: December 17, 2015 — 7:03 pm

38 Comments

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  1. I filled up this morning for $1.75 on the east side of indy and that same station is now $1.71. These are the kind of drops I notice before big hikes hit.

  2. Nothing in sw Ohio yet.
    Guessing we’ll get an early Saturday spike.
    Topping off at 1.649 just in case.

  3. all quiet here in the NW ohio rt 20 corridor also..1.75-1.85 seems the current going rate

    roads busy this afternoon..schools out for break..short week next week..lot people on the move..did someone miss a ‘trick ‘ here?

    can I get it wrong too weekends in a row and no spike?

    the jeep is back after its refit following an argument with a deer..goodbye 35 mpg welcome back 20 mpg so guess what I’m keeping crossed for no changes to the current gas pricing policy- its good to have the Red Beast back tho after the rental….

  4. It will either happen tomorrow or Tuesday.

    Oil at $34.55 and spot at $1.17 today

    Oil at $41.74 and spot at 93 cents back in mid-November

    Hmmmmmmm…there’s no outage at Whiting that I know of. Maybe there’s a swarm of squirrels and chipmunks outside their fenceline ready to strike keeping spot elevated?

  5. Careful Chris. You don’t want to anger the rose-colored glasses crew….

  6. Up 15 cents/gal to $1.999 today in NW Indiana. Family Express leading the charge. The rest right behind.

  7. Well, Columbus area still mostly 1.70’s-1.80’s…… Top off this morning for $1.61

  8. Prices still holding in the Greenwood area. I’ll probably top off tomorrow.

  9. Still holding $1.73-1.89 in South Bend IN area (avg $1.796).
    Niles MI still at $1.78-1.89.

  10. Crawfordsville Indiana at $1.34 now. Be interesting to see if they get a super spike tomorrow to $1.99. During the Thanksgiving week spike I was surprised to see it start to come down as quick as it did as it usually holds at least through the holiday itself.

    What I’d love to see is spot drop tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday. I’d bet we would still get a lump of coal in our stockings

  11. I’m just happy that it lasted through the weekend. I had a “free cents off” 20 gallon BP tank that I managed to get yesterday and if it goes a few more days, that’s just a bonus and I’ll top off here in Indy. With spot where it is and Costco/Admiral not really dropping anymore, it’s not like there’s room for it to drop much without a spike (with some selling below cost). But after wed, doubt I’ll be driving much for the rest of the year anyway.

  12. 1.999 reset/spike underway in Ohio.

  13. Yup. Also resetting to $1.99 this morning in Indiana and Michigan. No surprise there at all. Other than it took this long rather than fri or sat.

  14. Probably waited so they could get more Christmas travelers this week. A spike last Thursday/Friday would have given prices to drop a little bit by now.

  15. South Bend IN & Niles MI – Speedway in the lead to $1.99 today

  16. Merry Christmas Michigan from your friends at Greedway….1.99 in Kazoo area today.

  17. Speedways in Crawfordsville Indiana leading a DROP, yes that’s a DROP to $1.28. Sure it won’t last long, but it’s nice to see a small gas war going on amongst all the hikes

  18. Entering prices on gasbuddy:

    “2.39 seems high(for premium). Did you mean 1.39?”

    Yes, gb. It IS high, but it is also correct.

  19. Only one reason I can think of to keep wholesale costs more or less level when crude is in a long lived nose dive.

  20. Edit: Nevermind, I was reading USLD Spot, not Chicago Spot.

  21. Too bad that doesn’t work the other way TimmP keeping wholesale costs level when crude is skyrocketing. The spike is already reversing as I thought it would. Looks like we’ll have the last Christmas laugh

  22. Agree, Chris. Many of the stations in my area of SE MI (east of I-94/US-23) have given back 20 cents of the 30 cent spike.

  23. Not here in sw Ohio. GREEDway has a STRONG presence here. Average is only down to $1.944, after topping out at 1.98.
    Most are $1.899.

  24. We have plenty of them also, ChrisDG74. But when the station across the street or around the corner drops its price they are left with 2 options–drop the price or watch all the business go elsewhere. Some are holding onto $1.89 but the other ones are at $1.79. Pre-reset prices were $1.70-1.74.
    Throughout the entire process Sam’s and Costco held at $1.65.

  25. Speedways around here are built in spots where they have no direct (same intersection) competition. Combine that with a 30% market share, and…….you know the rest.

    The cheaper Speedways are ALWAYS at intersections with a UDF across the street. UDF drops, they follow. Problem is most Speedways don’t have a UDF across the street, or ANY brand across the street for that matter, increasing their ability to dictate price.

  26. Surprise, surprise. The Speedways that had dropped to $1.79 have upped their price to $1.87 in the past several hours even as other stations have gone lower. Quite the
    yo-yo show going on.

  27. Expounding on what Chris has said. The GREEDway closest to my house, West Northwest of Cincinnati has a story like this. The closest stations are two Shell stations, one directly across the street and other down the street on the other side of the I74 entrance/exit ramp 1/4 mile away.

    Not once since the advent of the “sawtooth” zone pricing have either of these Shell stations have been a penny under the GREEDway station except when the GREEDway spikes and the elapsed time is always less than an hour before they comply. This week both stations were up to the spike price hours before the GREEDway did so themselves. Pablov’s Dogs couldn’t give more conditioned responses.

    This is in the area of one GREEDway. I’m sure it is the same scenerio at the other Cincinnati area locations.

  28. So when is diesel going to drop below regular?

  29. Jen, when things are “in balance” and moving along fairly level, the big Pilot truck stop here in Fort Wayne, advertises cash the cash price for interstate truckers at 20¢ above the average price for gasoline. So, I don’t see that happening very often at all.

  30. Speedway leading the way back to $1.99 in GR this morning.

  31. Ohio as well, $1.999. Leave it to Speedway to bookend Christmas with 2 spikes.
    Oh well, filled up both cars yesterday for $1.259($1.759-500 Kroger points).
    28 gallons for a savings of almost $21 over the GREEDway price.

  32. Indiana is going up too. We were over the spike line by at least 12 cents, but that seems to be thrown out the window. Are there any holidays coming up soon LOL? “reaches for rose colored glasses”

    The last spike of 2015! Only about 30-40 more days until the big yearly march upwards begins…I can’t wait!!

  33. And I don’t feel like we hit the low we should have. I would have thought that given the price of crude, Fort Wayne’s average should have been in the mid to low $160’s for a couple weeks now.

  34. From the same company that brought you a Merry Christmas, we wanted to send you off into 2016 with another little present…. Happy Happy from your friends at Greedway. The company that just keeps taking…

  35. Someone keeps bidding up the spot markets for gasoline.

  36. Bidding Up == let’s offer to spend a little more so we can charge a lot more. Free markets in action.

  37. Wonder if someone is just betting on a squirrel to slip on the ice from this storm we are having.

  38. I agree with you TimmP. We hit a low of $1.68 earlier in the month and it only stayed there for 3 days or so before the inevitable spike hit. Maybe Glencore has taken charge of the spot market keeping it inflated? I thought for sure as low as crude was recently, spot would fall below 90 cents.

    I’d like to see crude stay in the $35 dollar range through the end of February and see if it holds spot down, but I’m sure that won’t happen.

    Ahhhhhhh, crude at $35, spot at $1.50 and gas at $2.30….what would Turbo say about that lol.

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