Drivers are really, really watching the price of oil.
Yesterday evening, seeing oil spike to $130 I told my wife she needed to fill her tank. I was joking; I really don't care. We drive so very little.
But this morning with her tank more than half full she remembered what I said last night and filled her tank. Price of unleaded regular: $3.49 / gallon.
But this is the interesting part. Except during an occasional hurricane, maybe once every two years, local gasoline stations seldom "run out" of gasoline.
Today, my wife said half of the pumps were "out of gasoline." They had the familiar plastic bags over half the pumps.
Are you kidding me? Yes, by Sunday afternoon (gasoline is generally not delivered on the weekends), our local stations were running out of gasoline -- folks knew what was coming this week.
Truly amazing.
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Could the stations maybe be hoarding their own supplies? Is that even ethical/legal.
ReplyDeleteJust curious
I'm not sure why they would do that.
DeleteWhen we have hurricane emergencies down here and we do run out of gasoline, it is up to the individual station manager how to manage scare fuel. Most, it appears, do not care, and are happy to sell out as quickly as possibly. Send the employee home and same money by not paying the employee.
If the service station owner tries to ration gasoline, arguments or fights generally break out, though in our area, on the honor system our manager asks folks to limit to ten gallons per fill up.
But I have never seen / heard a manager hoarding their own supplies. In our case, we will go to the Murphy Oil station across the street whose gasoline is slightly less costly, but it's less convenient to get there.
Saving five cents/gallon on $3.49 gasoline makes no sense. We go where it's most convenient, and, of course, who has it.
But, if we like Murphy Oil, we might quit going to the Shell station after we get used to Murphy Oil station when Shell has run out of gasoline.
No, I would think a gas station manager would have no reason to hoard gasoline. I assume you're thinking of hoarding so that when "everyone" else runs out of gasoline, they can raise their prices -- that's gouging and in Texas, gouging is taken very, very seriously. Easy to prove in gasoline sales.
Gouging was one thought, but I know in parts of Texas thats akin to horse theivin with same results.
ReplyDeleteJust thought maybe one station owner be holding back so he can be the only one on the block.
But then imagine the line of cars waiting to get gas. Would probably run out anyway.
Local stations hoarding gasoline and then raising prices, gouging, not gonna happen.
ReplyDelete