[AT] Higher gas prices or rationing

[David Bruce]

Charlie,

Actually I agree with you.  During the panic buying raising the price 
was the only way to stop the panic - it was pervasive all that Friday.
I stopped to fill my pickup (I use about half a tank a month in it and 
it was time for a fill) and the pumps at that station were busy but not 
swamped.  I went into the grocery store for about 30 minutes.  When I 
exited the cars were lined up in the roadway waiting for gas.

On the Monday following that Friday I stopped by an independent station 
who has no gas and I chatted with the owner a bit - no contract, the 
current wholesale price was $4.75 to him - so he opted to leave his 
pumps dry.

We are slowly returning to a normal supply situation but we will be just 
a hurricane away from the same situation once again.

As much as I hated the price increases that was a better option than not 
being able to buy any at any price.

I stopped by a station to fill my car yesterday - 3.799 which is down 
from 3.999 last week.  I still saw many people filling as many 
containers as they could.  I also saw some stations with bagged nozzles.

David
NW NC

charlie hill wrote:
> David,  I agree that $5.00 was a bit high but I'm going to defend the 
> actions of some of the stations on the day of the storm.  The store near my 
> house went from $3.79 to $4.39 in 1 hour.  He never ran out of gas and 
> didn't have any lines.  Others in town went up to about $4.  and had lines 
> out in the street and lots of problems.  It happens that I was working for 
> an oil jobber that day.  His driver told me that the price at the terminal 
> that morning jumped to $4.15 wholesale to the jobbers.  That doesn't include 
> the hauling, the 44 cents of NC and US tax or any overhead or profit.  So 
> $4.39 really wasn't out of range.  In fact if he hadn't had some gas already 
> in his tanks he would have been loosing money at that price.  By the end of 
> the day he had cut his price back to $4.29 and then the next morning to 
> $4.19.  The folks that kept selling cheap on the storm day sold out and then 
> were selling at about $4.20 or so when they got another load.
> 
> I think that the guys that raised the prices helped to stop the panic buying 
> and made it possible for folks that have to have gas on a daily basis to 
> still get some instead of having all of it packed in the tanks of old ladies 
> who don't burn a tank a month.
> 
>>From what I hear the reason that some stations here in eastern NC don't have 
> gas today isn't because they can't get it but because they don't have a 
> contract price locked in and can't compete with the guys that do.    They 
> don't want to pay $4.00 + and put it in their tanks to sit there while their 
> competitors sell at $3.60.  That is what the folks at Sheetz stores told our 
> local news folks concerning their new store in Greenville NC.
> 
> Charlie
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Bruce" <davidbruce at yadtel.net>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [AT] possibly OT scrap prices---Wally gas
> 
> 
>> John,
>> In the Winston-Salem area we sill have spotty supplies - maybe a third
>> of the stations are dry at anyone time - apparently it is much worse
>> around Charlotte.
>> Given the nature of the panic buying the other Friday I'm surprised the
>> local situation isn't much worse.  There are several local retailers
>> facing legal problems under the price fixing law - many of them sold gas
>> for more than $5.00/ gallon that day - after starting the day at $3.85/
>> gallon or so.  Of course they were the only stations that had any gas at
>> the end of the day.
>> David
>> NW NC
>>
>> John Hall wrote:
>>> Not to start a bad fuel argument but back when gas was cheap at $1.75, I
>>> wouldn't use Wally world gas here. I knew several folks (including 
>>> myself)
>>> that wouldn't buy it because it gave really poor performance and mileage.
>>>
>>>  Don't know if the lack of fuel in your area has anything to do with the
>>> shortage here--they reported 80% of the stations in Charlotte were out
>>> yesterday. Supposedly we'll have plenty of fuel in the next couple weeks.
>>>
>>> John
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