quote:
Originally posted by gallows
Where I live (Comox) all the gas stations charge exactly the same high price. If there is a price change, they all change the price at the same time on the same day by exactly the same amount. I thought that price fixing cartels were illegal in Canada but it's probably my imagination or coincidence because that sort of thing couldn't happen, could it?
Actually, it's because on the Island Trimac delivers all of the fuel to a certain town on a certain day. On the mainland, and especially back east, there is some variation from station to station. HOwever, what the station owner makes from fuel is really a pittance anyway. And there has not been any signifigant price fixing found, despite the millions of dollars spent by our government to find it. In fact, the only two stations I see playing with price are:
Tillicum and Craigflower:
The Esso across from the Petro Can drops it's price by two cents in the later half of the day to attract traffic on the way home to fill up.
The Esso at CanWest Mall drops it's price by 3.5c a litre to compete wtih SuperStore and their 3.5C coupoons that they give out when you fill there.
If there was any real margin in Gasoline, Wal-Mart would have a station selling it as a loss-leader to get people in the door.
I see a lot of people slagging station owners, but seeing as taxes make up the the second largest share of fuel markup after crude costs, why not slag our lovely government who puts things like carbon taxes on fuel?
Want one example? The carbon tax, our newest addition to the governments piece of the pie. It is supposed to be revenue neutral, which means that they tax it to "reduce" consumption, then divvy it up and sent it out to everyone! So, in the spirit of Carl Marx, they take hundreds of dollars from me as I buy my fuel to run my economically viable and successful busines, and then send out nice little cheques to everyone, including bums who don't drive and consider hanging out at Starbucks a vocation.
We wont' see fuel prices correct for a month or two yet, as the $147/bbl contracts sold in July are now just being filled, the oil price you see on Nymex are futures contracts, that is, what we pay for a barrel of oil a month or two down the road.
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