Gas price "wars" in my city

**AmyMCGS** · 07-28-2006, 09:08 PM

On the local news last night there was a story about two of the gas stations in my city having huge lines because they were selling their gas about $ .20 cheaper per gallon than all the other stations in the area. These two stations are within a mile of each other. People were waiting 30-40 minutes in line for the gas.

Today I went to the library, and decided to head over to that side of town and see if the price war was still going on. It was! There was a huge line at the first station- backed up down the road about ten cars. I went to the second station, where I only waited in line ten minutes, and filled my tank at $2.68 a gallon. Just up the road I saw it for $2.89 a gallon, and some other local places are as high as $3.09 today.

Here's the story:
http://www.whiotv.com/newsarchive/9590129/detail.html

**Amanda W** · 07-28-2006, 09:23 PM

I heard about this today on the radio! I'm sooo jealous!!!

**Daisygirl** · 07-29-2006, 07:12 AM

Here is the thing that ticks me off. Obviously you can sell gas at a reasonable price and still make a profit,as proven by those two stations, but these greedy companies refuse to do so. This drives up the cost of everything that must be transported, which is well, everything. So by gouging gas prices as high as possible our entire economy will be negatively affected by inflation.

Here is the real sticker. You know how gas companies are complaining that the companies that drill the oil are the ones charging more, to try and defend themselves? Did you ever thing about who owns the oil companies? The same companies that own the gas stations!!!! They are charging themselves whatever they want, knowing that they will make up the price at the pumps and the cost will be passed on to us, then trying to confuse the issue with semantics.

I drive as little as possible these days, I refuse to be a slave to these prices any more than I must. They may get more per gallon now, but they will certainly sell me fewer gallons!

**ubumartin** · 07-29-2006, 10:36 AM

Especially when Exxon posts a 10 BILLION quarterly gain! What 5 billion per quarter wouldnt be enough they have to get 10 billion! I hope things turn around soon as I know I am hurting with the increased prices but I can't imagine living on minimum wage with children and rent and utilities. Something has to give.

**fernykins** · 07-29-2006, 11:21 AM

A lot of the gas stations here are franchised out. They may carry the main companys name.......But they only make 2-3 per gallon...... So it is the big oil companys raking in all the dough........Sometimes the lillte gas stationscan get away with lower priices because they can shop around...... but throse that run under the oil companys name an't..... right now the cheepest here 3.09...... I drive very little now a tank will last me almost a month.
Fern

**Kimberlina** · 07-29-2006, 01:27 PM

I just read in Smart Money that the gas stations are only making a few cents per gallon. So if they lower their prices even a few cents, they might be making n oprofit on gas sales.

But I also read in the same article that the gas all comes from the same place, (Exxon, Mobile, the no-name stations- they all get their gas from the same exact stores once it is refined) so you shouldn't be paying more for "name brand" gas.

It was actually a pretty interesting article. I think it was called something like "10 Things The Gas Station Won't Tell you" or something similar, and it was probably the July issue. I don't have it any more- left it at the beach house.

Anyway, if I could even pay $2.89 a gallon, I'd be pretty happy. Hasn't been that price here in at least a month.

**peanut** · 07-29-2006, 03:29 PM

Argh! We are at $4.44 cdn/gallon, and that's cheap. Most stations are at $4.80/gall locally.

Jean

**Telephus44** · 07-30-2006, 06:29 PM

The best way to think of gasoline price wars like that is similar to loss leader in the grocery store - people know that when there is a really good sale on X at the grocery store that the store is actually losing money on X, but they are hoping that you will buy other things while you're in the store. This philosophy extends beyond grocery stores. I'm sure that the gas stations are also hoping that you'll pick up a soda or a gallon of milk, or that you'll be so impressed that you'll become a "regular" and go there every day.

And, sorry to get on my soapbox here - I am so sick of everyone beating up on the oil companies. Their profit margin is a lot smaller than other industries (like, say, half of the profit margins of banks that issue credit cards charging outrageous interest rates) but oil companies happen to be huge! No one looks at that, we just look at the dollar figure. It's similar to if person A spent $50 on groceries and saved 15%, they would be saving $7.50. If person B spent $1000 on groceries and saved 15%, they'd be saving $150 - three times the budget of person A! And rather than looking at how much extra they spent, we would hem and holler about how much they saved. No one looks at how much ExxonMobile actually did in sales (which, BTW - for the 10 Billion dollars net income they had last quarter, they had 99 Billion dollars in sales) and looks at that - no - we're too blinded by the big number that the media keeps flashing us - they made 10 Billion dollars!!. Also - has anyone read in the big media articles that ExxonMobile paid 27 Billion dollars in taxes last quarter? I don't think so. ExxonMobile is the largest publically traded company in the WORLD - of course they are going to have higher absolute sales dollars and profit dollars (and taxes paid).
(here's the report for reference, in case anyone wants to check: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...ewID=news_view )

(getting OFF the soapbox now)

Sorry, it just really ticks me off when people think that "big corporations" are nothing more than bad guys and thugs trying to gouge us all.

**MrsB** · 07-31-2006, 02:17 PM

There was a story on the news the other morning, I don't know what station or anything as it was about 3am when I saw it. But there was a town in New Mexico that had 2 gas stations in a gas war and gas went down to 49 CENTS a GALLON!!!!!!!!! They said the Fire Marshall finally had to put a stop to it b/c it was becoming a health hazard with the highway being blocked with cars. I'm going to look it up real quick and see if I can find it.