Only have time for a few sentences. CBOB (Chicago wholesale) soared on Tuesday, due to refinery problems, and, I think, one or two panicky buyers. We are set up for a potentially ugly price hike on Wednesday. -EA
Only have time for a few sentences. CBOB (Chicago wholesale) soared on Tuesday, due to refinery problems, and, I think, one or two panicky buyers. We are set up for a potentially ugly price hike on Wednesday. -EA
Filled up the truck, which was on empty…and an extra can full….Got to stay ahead of the game!
According to the refinery map, only 2 out of the 6 are running without problems….
Just looked again, there are 4 more refineries that have problems in Mid and Southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio!
Same stuff, different year.
There is one station in Toledo, a Kroger, at $2.899, while another is at $2.199 (cash). 70 cents difference! Is the former going to be it, or higher?? Place your bets!
My cost up 20 cents today. I’m guessing 2.99 today
About as exciting as watching Pro Wrestling but the folding metal chairs ringside…
Edited:
About as exciting as watching Pro Wrestling but without the folding metal chairs ringside…
Looks like Big Red decided $2.69 for majority of Indiana (NW Indiana was spiking to that before them this morning) and $2.79 in Michigan is new price. Lord knows what’s going to happen in Ohio (haven’t seen it yet)
E C W
E C W
E C W
hehe
$2.79 in Grand Rapids — Big Red.
Where are all these refineries that are having trouble? I haven’t seen any news on BP Whiting going down. I know there was one in Michigan, but is that affecting Whiting causing them to pick up the slack? I thought they were our primary source and when they go down, we go up. Maybe it’s a small facility on Orcas Island Washington thousands of miles away that’s causing this spike??
You know it’s bad when I can fill up my car along the beaches of Waikiki cheaper than I can at a Greedway station in Muncie Indiana.
Since February, spot has nearly quadrupled and WTI crude/gas have doubled
The real irony is that according to the latest EIA report (a few days old) Midwest PADD2 refinery usage is at an unusually high 91+ percent and refined products in storage are rising sharply. Not normally a suspicious person…but. One refinery that has an unknown capacity lost is Robinson in southern IL. Have heard of no issues with any of 3 Chicago area refineries. Exxon Mobil should be finished with their “turnaround” which did not impact gasoline production anyway.
South Bend IN to 2.69
Niles MI to 2.79
Gotta love those “free” markets….
And by “free”, we mean “free”-ly manipulated.
There must have been a malfunction on the Lundberg Pause Button…
WRTV quotes Patrick: “DeHaan also said the reason for the jump would be refineries buying gasoline in a tight supply.”
http://www.api.org/~/media/files/oil-and-natural-gas/gasoline/us-gasoline-distillate-update.pdf claims that last year we were sitting on 49.5 MBBL Gasoline, this year up 7.5% to 53.2 MBBL.
At the end of the day, tho, this is all meaningless. Speedway will raise prices because, they’re Speedway. They can get away with it, good for them. This board has a dozen or so regulars, while the general public is paying no attention. An hour AFTER the spike a couple Speedway stations I passed were full of customers. The GetGo in Carmel was quite crowded BEFORE the spike.
But guess what. We’ve conditioned ourselves. I’m looking for a new PC for my younger kid who’s going off to college. I thought of getting an Apple iMac 21.5″. The entry level price is not bad, but the machine is severely limited and upgrades to a useful level cost a fortune. A usable iMac is nearly twice the entry level iMac price. Apple has been doing this for a long time and yet they prosper. I was never an Apple fan, so I never really looked at pricing. I did and was amazed as to what they’re getting away with. Speedway is no different, except we don’t have a choice.
At the end of the day, Speedway is not the problem, they’re one of the many symptoms of companies putting themselves first and the customer last.
Well said Turbo..the boards of these companies no longer have any morals other than to the all mighty dollar.
It wasn’t very long ago at all that I said we were just TWO SPIKES from $3.00 and today, zero margin is $2.83. Will they? Or will they not? Go over $3.00 for margin’s sake? Then we can have THE most expensive gas in the US.
Michigan and California have the highest gas prices in the nation right now. Our prices are high for no just cause, simply the greed of a few idiots.
We deserve $4.00 a gallon and $40 crude if we continue to react with apathy to what is happening.
Nobody seems to question the experts, for example. Or the media that, alongside the experts, have conditioned us to expect these prices. Or the state authorities for being asleep at the wheel.
I really don’t want to categorize the tens of millions of people in the six state zone as “gullible” but I really am amazed when such pricing manipulation comes up year after year with no reaction. The usual experts talk to the usual media, maybe some stock footage of a refinery fire, an irate motorist or two, and life goes on.
$2.799 spike in Ohio has begun.
There must be something in those Speedy Freezes………
Along with that we have the state (ADHD) politicians that promise to “get to the bottom of things” and somehow it is the last we ever hear about the issue.
I see where Ohio has joined the race to the top with a $2.799 spike. Thanks GREEDway.
Why do you never hear of several annual refinery shutdowns outside of the upper Midwest? They never have these problems on the east coast, and every couple years they get the remnants of a hurricane, yet they’re back up and running within days. Occasionally, you get the refinery issue on the west coast, but what about the south? They get hurricanes, tropical storms, yet they never have prolonged outages, and the outages they do have seem to rarely lead to overnight 40% price spikes. Just here in the upper Midwest. No storms. No reason. Just month after month after month of refinery “glitches” and “unscheduled maintenance” and “squirrels”. And yet, nothing is ever done…
Spot is down a quarter this morning so look for a rollback of yesterday’s and today’s price hike?
That rollback will take a few weeks……always does.
Rockets and Feathers! Up in 2 days, down in 2 weeks.
2 weeks if we’re lucky.
When Whiting farted back in August, prices went up 50 cents in 24 hours.
Spot retreated the very next day after the 2nd spike, but retail took THREE weeks to get back to pre-spike levels.
Rufus, you make a valid point. The regions you mention have direct access to imports of gasoline and the nation’s largest pipeline connecting the East Coast to Gulf Coast. The Midwest relies on itself, or a 7-10 day transit via pipeline from the Gulf. If the arb opens and Chicago gasoline becomes much more pricey, only then does product start really flowing into Chicago. You also hear about refinery issues on the West Coast, which is also geographically challenged. Allow me to point out where you’re wrong. During major storms that affect refineries you DO see major spikes. In the south after Katrina we saw prices of $5.89/gallon during shortages. Again during Ike. Problem is since the Gulf region has most of the countries refineries, they can get back on their feet with less disruption. But then the domino effect hits other markets supplied by the Gulf.
With GREEDway, you can join their rewards program, and get the lowest price at a particular station BEFORE they collectively tell the sheeple to bend over, until midnight on spike day.
Guilty as charged today–as I’ve said before, there’s some honor among thieves. If it gets me points towards future purchases to cushion the blow a little, so much the better.
Since in a civilized society, putting a hit out on the GREEDway/Ashland Petroleum CEO isn’t an option, what else can be done?
And thankfully, I would have lost my own bet from earlier this week!
(Of course, the week isn’t over yet! 🙁 )
How are you finding the Chicago Spot for free online?
Andrew, since you asked…
Here’s where the closing report I use was found on June 9
http://customercenter.murphyoilusa.com/index.cfm?show=803&product=DTNMKTWRHEADLINENEWS&id=07020A49
There are 20 or more stories posted each day. The Chicago spot story may appear any time between 330-500 PM CDT. Only the last two characters of the URL change and can be from 40-4F , 50-5F 60-6 (each has 16 hexadecimal possibilities), plus 70 and 71. Generally each newer story gets the next number in sequence, but occasionally they go back and start over (not necessarily at 40) before reaching the end. And the whole site just reappeared after not updating for a month and half.
If I wasn’t years into posting a Chicago gasbuddy price prediction thread (highly successful), it might be too much work.Usually takes less than a minute to find the right story.
….
even if they don’t go back to the beginning prematurely, the numbers are recycled every 2-3 days so oif you click the above link after say June 11, you’ll find a different story.
Just to give us an idea how far out of wak things are…….. The truck stop in Fort Wayne usually has the cash price for diesel foe interstate truckers at 20 cents over the normal price of gasoline. –usually–
This morning their diesel is $2.29 and gasoline is $2.69, headed to $2.79. By later today, gasoliane will be 50 cents above diesel, when it “should” be 20 below. 70 cents too high!
To piggyback of TimmP…this shows how out of whack things are. From the gasuddy:
Current Local Average: $2.77
One year ago: $2.75
Current National: $2.39
One year ago: $2.75
Same local vs national average this time last year. This year, $.38 higher/gallon.
Keep believing in the free markets for energy, folks…
Meanwhile Speedway is putting a lot of cash into new stores, squeezing out independent retailers or other chains. Nice gig if you can get it.
Since Greedway bought out Hess a couple years ago, I’d be curious if former Hess locations like in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina will be “privileged” to the big spikes we get once all the store rebranding is completed next year. I know South Carolina typically has some of the cheapest gas in the nation, but we’ll see what happens down the road.
I’ve done extensive travelling across the south and a 30-40 cent spike for us, is just a 4 or 5 penny bump for them. Guess Big Red is aiming to get their brand in all 50 states. Here’s a quote from the press release a couple years back when they bought out Hess:
“We also see the potential for tremendous opportunities and significant synergies through combined best practices and economies of scale throughout our entire retail network, which we believe will further drive earnings growth over the next several years.”
Translation….enjoy the big spikes ya’ll!!
Meanwhile, some gas stations nearby decided $2.49 was their spike, while most others (including Big Red) went to $2.69. Those stations have already backed off to $2.59. Anderson has been a hotspot for big drops lately and I hope it continues that way in my gas tank’s favor
with the falling spot price again looks like we may have dodged the double spike in a week bullet..for now
a few stations were late to the party NW ohio corridor and only went to 2.799 today..but alreay seeing 2.72-2.79 in a couple places the day after
so here’s more fuel to the ‘things out of whack’ debate
when the BP whiting fubar happened last August last year spot soared to 2.40+ a gallon quickly sending prices to 2.899 in this area
Wednesday spot touched 2.10 (30 cents below last years peak) but prices were only 10c below last years peak..so somewhere the gap narrowed by 20 cents
Scala100…
Maybe this explains the difference in apparent margins.
” Marathon will spend $319 million to install state-of-the-art flare gas
recovery systems, which will capture and recycle gases that would otherwise be
sent to combustion devices known as flares. Marathon will also spend $15.55
million on projects to reduce air pollution at three of the facilities and will
pay a civil penalty of $326,500.”
That’s Marathon Petroleum, parent of Speedway. They gotta get the money somewhere to pay 🙂
Cincinnati is almost 40 cents above the National average this morning. Life in the GREEDway Zone.
Looks like my local gas stations (and just about everyone else’s in the upper Midwest) are making some pretty good coin right now. Looks like no extra goodies for me for a bit. Gas n go. Screw them.
Cincy average $1 over spot.
Cha-ching.
All the other brands need to remember to thank GREEDway.
Up 30 cents in an instant last week.
Spot prices down 36 cents since, while our pump prices have dropped……THREE cents.
most stations rt 20 corridor holding steadfast at 2.699 since end of last week, although a couple have broken loose and reset to 2.599 this morning
as above spot falling like a stone, gas falling like a feather
We know the feeling up here, ChrisDG74. Spot shown as $1.74; Ann Arbor @ $2.77; MI @ $2.72 and U.S. average @ $2.38.
Cincinnati still 35 cents above the National average and 7 cents above the Ohio average.
In my company, if a third of our machining centers went down, we miss deadlines, parts get back ordered, angry customers who will eventually come knocking on our competition’s door, employees on the carpet (before being shown the door) and the loss of a chunk of change showing up on our balance sheets. When refineries have “unplanned” outages it becomes an opportunity to turn a tidy profit. Nice work if you can get it.
Cincy rack average: $1.91/gal, down 5 cents overnight. Stations will have passed that 5 cent drop on in the next 1-2 days.
Bearcat- when refineries have unplanned *outages* they lose opportunity to make money. They spend money and effort fixing something. That’s like saying an Uber driver profits when their car is in the shop unexpectedly.
The refinery that goes down looses. Those in operation get the windfall. Haven’t seen a shortage of fuel at the pumps in the midwest since the 70’s.
Only seen ONE station actually run out of gas, ever, in 41 1/2 years(well, as far back I can remember, at least).
And that one was self-inflicted. A UDF refused to play along with the Speedway across the street when they spiked 50 cents. The UDF sold out at the much lower price, knowing they had a truck coming later that evening. The tanks were empty for all of about 45 minutes.