Today’s fuel price musings - Gap closing between Rockford and the rest of the nation…

January 19th, 2009 at 12:19pm Thomas V. Bona

We’ve dropped 34 places in the national metro area rankings on gas prices in the past week, as the rest of the nation is seeing prices increase. Here’s a great article from the Quad-City Times explaining more on the balancing act that refiners and retailer are facing. It makes an interesting point  - refiners took a hit on gasoline because it allowed them to make the more profitable diesel and jet fuel late last year. Now, they’re trying to get margins back to normal, and they’re doing annual maintenance, so you’ll see wholesale gasoline stay up despite crude’s drop.

Meanwhile - and I think people miss this key point - retailers have to keep gasoline at a reasonable price because they need shoppers to come in their stores and buy other things. I’ve been told that while fuel sales are as much of a gas station’s volume, it only provides like 20 percent of the profits. The real money is getting people to buy things in store. If they inflate prices, people shop elsewhere and then they’re in real trouble.

The more I learn, the more I realize I need to learn…

Here are the prices (courtesy of AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com):

Gasoline: Rockford stayed at $1.93 a gallon, increasing almost a cent over the weekend. We’ve fallen to seventh in the state and are tied as 86th-highest of the nation’s 280 metro areas. The Illinois average stayed at $1.99, rising three cents over the weekend. The national average rose a fraction of a cent to remain at $1.84, up more than two cents over the weekend. Illinois has the fifth-highest gas prices in the nation, including the District of Columbia. Alaska, California, Hawaii and Washington average more than $2 a gallon.

Diesel: Rockford dropped four cents to $2.39 a gallon, down seven cents over the weekend. We have the sixth-highest diesel prices in the state. The state average dropped two cents to $2.52, down three cents over the weekend. The national average dropped a cent to $2.42. Illinois has the 15th-highest diesel prices in the country. Only Alaska and Hawaii remain above $3 a gallon.

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