Retail Watchers

The price keeps going up... every single day...

Wish my area of Nevada could quit getting its fuel from California. If there was some way to get it from elsewhere, could really help our prices and let California keep its way overpriced fuel. Some new pipelines that could better connect Nevada to the Southwest would really help.

Still curious who is making all of the money on this. It feels like a feeding frenzy with all involved from the oil field to the refiner- cashing in big time. After the refiner this turns into a cents based business with the remaining parties (pipeline, terminal, transport, gas station) picking up a set number of cents per gallon they handle. The credit card processors must love this as they are getting a bigger cut out of each gallon than many other parties are.

Tonight gas was $4.99 at Sam's Club and Costco in Fountain Valley. The Fountain Valley store had a line that extended a quarter mile down Talbert Street and went through the entire parking lot. The Sam's Club nearby is mostly cut off from the world due to major freeway construction nearby but still had a long line going through the parking lot. I had waited 15 minutes and was finally making the 90 degree turn down the aisle and a car tried to cut the line pulling up next to me. I honked my horn and she feigned the look of surprise that there is indeed a line... Then an enormous guy in a raised diesel pickup behind me got out of his car and walked up to her window, pounding on the glass and screaming at the top of his lungs without sparing the profanity - "You _____, can't you ____ing see you ____ing cut the ____ing line....." After he was done making a scene and I had crept up slightly with my car to ensure she couldn't still sneak past me she still had the nerve to try to gesture to me to let her cut in line. The guy with the huge truck immediately drove up and basically pinned her between my car and the planter to the side so she was completely trapped. Just a lovely situation. (she finally had no choice but to back out and leave)

The exact same thing is happening here in northern VA as well. Gas prices jumped some 60 cents between Sunday and Monday, the average area price is now about $4/gallon. Luckily I topped off just a few days earlier for $3.35/gallon.

I have absolutely ZERO clue as to why this is happening, price gouging is the only thing that makes sense. The weather has not been bad but I'll bet they blame COVID and the lack of drivers and refinery crew as the excuse (sorry, I mean "reason") for all this...

Bradford011 wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 5:14 am The exact same thing is happening here in northern VA as well. Gas prices jumped some 60 cents between Sunday and Monday, the average area price is now about $4/gallon. Luckily I topped off just a few days earlier for $3.35/gallon.

I have absolutely ZERO clue as to why this is happening, price gouging is the only thing that makes sense. The weather has not been bad but I'll bet they blame COVID and the lack of drivers and refinery crew as the excuse (sorry, I mean "reason") for all this...

Here in LA area all the talk stations on both sides of the spectrum are screaming about the gas prices all being a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It doesn't hold water at all because California is a completely closed market and nothing comes from out of state. California has specialized gas requirements (none of which are good for cars by the way - drive your car to Vegas or Phoenix and fill up there before you leave - you'll feel like you bought a new car because it will run so much faster and smoother on the trip back). It is 100% speculation and profiteering in California. The entire rest of the world could spontaneously run out of oil tomorrow and it would still have nothing to do with the California market.

ClownLoach wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 1:59 pm

Bradford011 wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 5:14 am The exact same thing is happening here in northern VA as well. Gas prices jumped some 60 cents between Sunday and Monday, the average area price is now about $4/gallon. Luckily I topped off just a few days earlier for $3.35/gallon.

I have absolutely ZERO clue as to why this is happening, price gouging is the only thing that makes sense. The weather has not been bad but I'll bet they blame COVID and the lack of drivers and refinery crew as the excuse (sorry, I mean "reason") for all this...

Here in LA area all the talk stations on both sides of the spectrum are screaming about the gas prices all being a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It doesn't hold water at all because California is a completely closed market and nothing comes from out of state. California has specialized gas requirements (none of which are good for cars by the way - drive your car to Vegas or Phoenix and fill up there before you leave - you'll feel like you bought a new car because it will run so much faster and smoother on the trip back). It is 100% speculation and profiteering in California. The entire rest of the world could spontaneously run out of oil tomorrow and it would still have nothing to do with the California market.

I just read where the US has banned the import of Russian oil. And I'll bet the oil monopoly has more than likely used this as an excuse to "justify" a price hike to gouge the US consumer.

The Costco gas station near me had about 100 cars at closing time. They had to force people to drive away.

The Chevron near me is at $5.99 for credit and $5.79 for cash. I used to see a line of 100 cars at Chick-fil-a, but now the line is about 15 cars. If I had to wait 2 hours for gas, the last thing I want to do is wait in the drive thru at Chick-fil-a. I have noticed that lines at Restaurants seem to be shorter now. People are not spending as much.

People who work from home have it easy. For the rest of us who have to drive to work, it is miserable.

Bradford011 wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 5:34 pm

I just read where the US has banned the import of Russian oil. And I'll bet the oil monopoly has more than likely used this as an excuse to "justify" a price hike to gouge the US consumer.

Russia accounts for about 1.4% of US oil imports.

Not to drift too far off retail topic here, but:

I believe if the US does not buy oil from Russia, someone else will buy that oil instead, at a discount (from the spiked up price, which will probably still mean they are getting more for the oil today than they were getting six months ago or 14 months ago......). It is a big world out there. That someone else who decided to buy the Russia oil the US "refused to buy" would have bought oil from some third other party and now instead the US will buy oil from that third other party. The net effect is basically this price hike is blamed on the Russia situation however the price was spiking before the conflict even started then it shot up last week after the conflict started. Also who is benefiting from the price hike? Not Russia. Certainly not the consumers of these countries paying these prices. It is the various other oil producing countries.

This is definitely an excuse to gouge consumers in various countries but not just the US; there are other countries where the consumer is experiencing huge oil price hikes very similar to what we are seeing in the US. There are also other countries that are not seeing price hikes (Mexico is one of those countries).

The last time oil barrel was this high was in May 2008 it went to $127. It is important to note May 2008. It is also important to note the price fell to $54 by November 2008 (we know what happened in November 2008 and that same thing happens in November 2022).

I do not remember pump prices spiking this high in 2008 but they got close. The difference now is we have more taxes being added to the price of gas now than before especially at certain local levels and increased sales tax rates also add more cents to the price of a gallon of gas.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CL%3DF?p=CL%3DF

The bad thing here is we are already dealing with major price hikes across the board in retail. Now you have this oil price spike. Every time this happens there are price hikes because of it. It happened in 2008 spike (even though the oil fell quickly from its peak), it happened in the April 2011 spike, but to be fair oil prices stayed fairly high until 2014. But prices never drop on goods/services that got a price hike due to oil increases, when oil goes down.

Best solution at this point is to cut down on driving and use less oil. We can't change whatever is going on that has been going on for months now has caused this. However I expect somehow some way they will do something to get these prices down, and fast, before November 2022.

ClownLoach wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 1:59 pm

Here in LA area all the talk stations on both sides of the spectrum are screaming about the gas prices all being a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It doesn't hold water at all because California is a completely closed market and nothing comes from out of state. California has specialized gas requirements (none of which are good for cars by the way - drive your car to Vegas or Phoenix and fill up there before you leave - you'll feel like you bought a new car because it will run so much faster and smoother on the trip back). It is 100% speculation and profiteering in California. The entire rest of the world could spontaneously run out of oil tomorrow and it would still have nothing to do with the California market.

Well I mean those barrels of oil still have to come into a CA refinery for CA to produce the gasoline. So in that regard CA is still impacted by this price hike in the barrel of oil. If oil flow stops into the US, CA will be in a supply crunch like the rest of the country. However given the higher prices in CA perhaps CA would be in a better position to compel suppliers to sell it oil in the event of a price hike, since the prices in CA are higher so they could probably win a bidding war to buy oil in a tight market from outside countries. But I don't think that is how oil buys work. However the rules change when there is a supply crunch.

Though there is supposedly a lot of oil in CA; they could increase drilling (but that doesn't happen overnight).

Crude oil took a sharp drop of over 10% in 3/9 market hours. Will be interesting to see how quickly this drop is reflected in the pump prices, given the increases in crude oil seemed to be getting reflected in pump prices, literally, immediately over the past 9 days.....

Not seeing prices come down despite the barrel of oil hovers at the 110 level which is almost 10% lower than early last week when prices did this spike.

Also seeing Diesel in my area in Nevada at the major truck stops within a 40 mile radius of me at 5.49. Cross over into CA and the truck stops there diesel is 6.09-6.49. Ouch. Many companies have fuel contracts so they may not be paying those prices, or paying them yet, but eventually everything gets caught up and these prices will be paid by the trucking companies.

This is going to be very bad for prices of everything. Summer 2008 all over again- not a good memory. Oil fell quickly into the fall/winter due to the election but also because the fuel price rising so much made the economy go way down real fast. I guess that is what we have to look forward to unless this changes VERY fast.