by johnfariss » Wed May 05, 2010 1:51 pm
I just paid $2.819 at Costco in Brandywine, Maryland, a 20 mile distant suburb of Washington, up about 10 cents from my previous fill-up. It is 2 - 4c per gallon more at most places locally, but edges up by 15 - 25c the closer to Washington you get.
Here is my gas story: 26, 28 years ago, when gas was approaching the outrageous $2/gal, I was a security consultant in Birmingham, Alabama. One of our clients was Texaco, and in our office was the regional personnal manager for company-owned stations in the southeastern US--that being defined as the area north to the Mason-Dixon line and west to the Mississippi. The secretary's radio happened to be on, and they announced the quarterly profits for the oil companies while he was there. When a company spokesman for Texaco explained that Texaco was making only 1 or 2 cents a gallon profit, but their profits were so huge because the American public insisted on buying so much, etc., etc., etc., this Texaco executive laughed out loud. We all looked at him with a puzzled expression, and he said to us, "I work for these people, but I'm not that big a liar. We're selling gas right now that we've had in tanks for 15 years, and even when you add in the cost of storage and transportation, it costs us about 15 cents a gallon!" Whether you believe it or not, and whether he was accurate or not, that is what he said.
John Fariss