P.G. Enjoying Cheapest Gas in B.C.
Prince George, B.C. – This weekend would be a great time to fill up your gas tank if you live in Prince George.
Dan McTeague, senior petroleum analyst at Gasbuddy.com, says at $1.02.4 up to $1.02.9 or even $1.03 a litre, the city is enjoying some of the cheapest gas prices in the province.
“It’s very close to that. You may get the odd station here and there offering it as cheap as that but no, generally speaking, as far as the Interior, as far as Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Prince George as a community is the cheapest in all of the province.”
He attributes the cheap gas to a price war in town “that doesn’t really allow them (gas station owners) to make a whole lot of money selling you gasoline.”
“Let me put it in perspective, it costs gas station owners in Prince George about 97, call it 98 cents a litre to buy gasoline wholesale with taxes in,” says McTeague.
“They’re selling it for $1.02.4 up to $1.03 and take into account the cost of honouring credit cards and other programs and they’re not really making any money. Selling gas in Prince George today is not a very profitable proposition and motorists are the ones to benefit.”
But he warns the cheap prices won’t last much longer.
“Id’ say until mid-week next week. By Wednesday we could see prices move up a bit and that’s only because the wholesale price is likely to increase by a penny or a penny and a half,” says McTeague.
“It becomes a real tipping point if it now costs them say 99 cents to a dollar to buy their gasoline. They cannot economically sell gasoline for a $1.02 then lose their shirts.”
He says that means gas prices will rise anywhere from three to seven cents a litre.
“And no, it has nothing to do with the long weekend coming up next weekend in both Canada and the U.S.”
Comments
Thank You Costco!!
Ditto!
Yes it wasn’t for Costco we would be paying the highest prices for fuel right now.
Yes! thank you Costco! can imagine how much we would get ripped off if it wasn’t for Costco. long live Costco!
You guys are kidding, right? Costco drops their price of gas a few pennies as a marketing tool to get people to shop there.
Every gas station in the region gets their supply from the same place and each is free to price it to the public any way they want. You think Costco has a mini refinery tucked in behind their building?
Costco brought their fuel in from Washington state when they first brought the prices down here in PG. I think they only recently started sourcing locally after Husky started to price accordingly. Costco corporate policy is they make 20% on everything they sell… no more and no less… any discounts are from the producer themselves.
Most all of the stations in PG are company owned and are not independents. The managers of these stations are but glorified employees of the gas companies that make their income as a percentage of fuel and or the retail sale of non-fuel products at the site. Site managers in PG have no say in the price of fuel here. It’s all corporate HQ decisions to keep their product flowing and has very little bearing on the income of local station managers.
Memories are short indeed, mgomez must not remember how much we were gouged in the past.
the irony in people celebrating Costco, and sticking it to the local gas station owner, is priceless. Its the same people complaining about RV’s parking overnight at Costco, Walmart etc
Every one cent of fuel costs PG a million dollars a month. We use to be the highest priced in the province before Costco opened up the fuel bar. The savings for locals since is in the tens of millions that now goes into our local retail market in other ways, rather than going to the off shore shareholders of the big corporate gas companies that use to gouge us for every dime they could squeeze… Most notably the Chinese that own the Husky refinery in town.
I have very clear memories of our gas prices being consistently among the highest in the province prior to Costco opening up their gas bar….so YES THANK YOU COSTCO for stopping the gouging that we were experiencing.
Retail gas stations are not making any money?? Then why do we have around 28 retail locations in PG? Do they operate at a loss out of the kindness of their heart?
I call BS on their 1-2 cent/L profit margin.
Even at 102.9 we are still being gouged. Consider this; the price of crude oil is still in the same range as when we were paying 49.9 years ago. Refining costs have only decreased due to technology… so where is the justification for today’s fuel costs at the pump? If it is all going to taxation, then someone needs to follow that money to see where the govt is spending all this money that we pay in fuel….just so that we can get to work… to pay income tax and pst/gst, msp, property tax and user fees.
The govt then informs us that consumer debt is out of control and we all need to be thankful that interest rates have been kept low.
And YES… I am thankful that Costco has given us here some relief on fuel prices… and that retail gas stations are supposedly going broke because of them.. when I actually witness petro can or Husky go bankrupt, then I may change my mind.
Exxon doubled their profits last quarter, a quarter were the price for a barrel of oil dropped. So yes they are making plenty of profits over gasoline refining at these prices. US Secretary of State Tillerson left his old company in good hands.
Before condemning Exxon for their greed, you’d have to take a close look at the company’s complete financial statements to see what caused their profit to double.
There could be many reasons why that happened, and quite possibly none of them to do with ‘price gouging’.
A business’s profit isn’t calculated quite the same way that a lot of people think about profit~ where one party buys something for $ 1 and sells it to someone else for $ 2 and is able to pocket a buck as their profit.
In business accounting profit is not analogous to positive changes cash only, there are several other items that affect it. Operational profit in a business is Sales minus Expense, NOT Revenue minus Expenditure. It might sound like the same thing, but there’s really quite a difference.
I agree a rather simplistic factoid. Of course with GAAP rules and such we could come up with just about anything for profits. Recognizing loses, revenue, depreciation, and one time expenses or write downs in a company that size can be the difference of billions.
“And no, it has nothing to do with the long weekend coming up next weekend in both Canada and the U.S.”
and they really expect us to believe that.
Welll Costco has another competitor… The Shelly Reserve gas station just newly opened.. Sure… got to drive bout ten minutes to get to it… but still cheaper than Costco
I’m told that the Shelly tanks are above ground, so there will be a considerable amount of condensation. If they aren’t careful, you could be getting more water than you want in you fuel.
I saw a photo of the Shelley pumps. The pumps are situated on a concrete apron but the concrete is surrounded by gravel, npt asphalt.
I thought that environmental regulations required the pumps to be situated on a concrete apron and the apron was to be surrounded by asphalt to help prevent any spillage from entering and contaminating the ground?
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