Fuel Availability

[southernsky]

We're leaving Sunday from south Louisiana heading to Maine and parts in between. Was wonder if anyone is having problems finding diesel while on the road. Not worried about prices, it is what it is. Thanks

[ol_Bombero-JC]

jdc1 wrote:
Can't cry about $6/gallon fuel. Ask a Canadian what they are paying.

I looked long & hard for a Canadian to ask! Couldn't find one!

:B..:B

.

[dedmiston]

Please keep the politics out of the thread, as hard as that may be.

[Michelle_S]

I looked at some of our previous trips. In 2014 we traveled across the country from Florida and all the way up to Fairbanks, Alaska. were paying $3.50 to $5 in the US and one stop in Canada fuel was $1.99 a Liter. Don't remember anyone complaining then like they are now.

[wa8yxm]

I do not think you will have any issues FINDING fuel
Paying for it.. Well that's another matter.

The Oil companies are working hard to insure you can pay too much for fuel.

[wanderingbob]

I drove thru 6 states last week , no shortage of fuel . Price varied by up to 80 cents a gallon just by moving away from interstate highways.

[dedmiston]

Microlite Mike wrote:
Stations like that are usually "un-branded" and are both in remote areas as well as slowly vanishing. They're usually served by the larger "Jobbers" that service fleets and other accounts that are too small for the large distributors to bother with.

Yep. The indies are definitely the edge cases though.

I used to install back-office software in c-stores and spent a lot of time in gas stations all over the U.S. One of the most interesting installs was for a major jobber in Long Beach, CA. They had about a hundred c-stores and our system consolidated all of their store reports into something they could view daily at their headquarters. Our software product was still in beta, so I spent a couple months down at their HQ tweaking and troubleshooting.

The most interesting thing about spending so much time in their offices was watching all the traders. Those guys were on the phone all day long making buys and sells and it was crazy to watch. They'd buy Chevron's oversupply and sell it to Unocal, etc. I never realized that all those refined products were identical until they were loaded onto the company trucks and the branded chemicals were added. I'd heard before that "It's all the same {stuff} until the chemists whizz in it to make it Shell gas." That never made sense to me until I actually saw the product move around like that.

The other thing I saw was that everyone was making a buck no matter what the price was. The demand is so inelastic that customers like us will keep buying no matter what. But the majors and their whole distribution network all made their buck. The only times I ever saw anybody losing out was when the parent companies would squeeze their dealers with an uncompetitive cost, and then the dealers would lose out to the guy down the street. Doing their price surveys and arguing their case to the majors looked pretty frustrating to those guys. I never did hear the other side of the story though. The only dealers who really seemed pinched were the ones who weren't very good businessmen to start with. Either the majors smelled blood in the water or they were doing something else dumb that hurt their prospects.

[Grit_dog]

dedmiston wrote:
There's a lot of misunderstandings about how fuel deliveries are paid for.

For starters, some of the locations are "company owned" or "salary operated". At those stores, the oil company owns the location and the station doesn't pay for the load.

Some companies work on true consignment where the branded company delivers the load and then the dealer pays as they go (on terms, of course). These are rare, but Amoco used to be the main major company to do this. I don't know if they still do. In these cases, Amoco owns the oil until it's sold. Amoco can call the dealer at any time and change the cost, and then the dealer needs to change their price.

In most cases, the dealers receive the load and then gets invoiced for it and they pay according to their terms.

In no case does the dealer hand the driver a sack of doubloons to pay for the load of fuel.

In my best Brandon voice…cmon man!
Don’t go inserting fact and substance into a perfectly good sky is falling paranoia thread!
Lol
Cheers!

[Microlite_Mike]

JRscooby wrote:

dedmiston wrote:
There's a lot of misunderstandings about how fuel deliveries are paid for.

For starters, some of the locations are "company owned" or "salary operated". At those stores, the oil company owns the location and the station doesn't pay for the load.

Some companies work on true consignment where the branded company delivers the load and then the dealer pays as they go (on terms, of course). These are rare, but Amoco used to be the main major company to do this. I don't know if they still do. In these cases, Amoco owns the oil until it's sold. Amoco can call the dealer at any time and change the cost, and then the dealer needs to change their price.

In most cases, the dealers receive the load and then gets invoiced for it and they pay according to their terms.

In no case does the dealer hand the driver a sack of doubloons to pay for the load of fuel.

What you say is likely true in most cases. But there are still stations that buy fuel from whoever will deliver, and payment made, not to driver, but transferred no delivery. (Fuel shortage, most likely not have a supply).

Stations like that are usually "un-branded" and are both in remote areas as well as slowly vanishing. They're usually served by the larger "Jobbers" that service fleets and other accounts that are too small for the large distributors to bother with.

[JRscooby]

dedmiston wrote:
There's a lot of misunderstandings about how fuel deliveries are paid for.

For starters, some of the locations are "company owned" or "salary operated". At those stores, the oil company owns the location and the station doesn't pay for the load.

Some companies work on true consignment where the branded company delivers the load and then the dealer pays as they go (on terms, of course). These are rare, but Amoco used to be the main major company to do this. I don't know if they still do. In these cases, Amoco owns the oil until it's sold. Amoco can call the dealer at any time and change the cost, and then the dealer needs to change their price.

In most cases, the dealers receive the load and then gets invoiced for it and they pay according to their terms.

In no case does the dealer hand the driver a sack of doubloons to pay for the load of fuel.

What you say is likely true in most cases. But there are still stations that buy fuel from whoever will deliver, and payment made, not to driver, but transferred no delivery. (Fuel shortage, most likely not have a supply).

[dedmiston]

Now that I've participated in the hijacking...

This thread isn't really a Roads & Routes discussion, or at least it isn't anymore. I'm going to move it to General.

[dedmiston]

Mayor30 wrote:
I just saw a video of the CEO of Pilot/Flying J. He testified that they get most of their DEF fluid by train. Their supplier told them their deliveries are being cut back by 25%.So while we may be able to get fuel, for those that own a truck that uses DEF fluid,we won't be able to drive anyways. Then I saw another story about how if your DEF fluid sensor goes bad, the engine computer won't let you run more than 5mph. This actually happened to me.

We've really done it to ourselves, haven't we. We switched all of our new diesels to DEF, and then we ship that DEF by diesel locomotives (not using DEF, by the way), but now the diesel is too expensive to ship the DEF.

What would Yakoff Shmirnoff say?

[Mayor30]

I just saw a video of the CEO of Pilot/Flying J. He testified that they get most of their DEF fluid by train. Their supplier told them their deliveries are being cut back by 25%.So while we may be able to get fuel, for those that own a truck that uses DEF fluid,we won't be able to drive anyways. Then I saw another story about how if your DEF fluid sensor goes bad, the engine computer won't let you run more than 5mph. This actually happened to me.

[dedmiston]

There's a lot of misunderstandings about how fuel deliveries are paid for.

For starters, some of the locations are "company owned" or "salary operated". At those stores, the oil company owns the location and the station doesn't pay for the load.

Some companies work on true consignment where the branded company delivers the load and then the dealer pays as they go (on terms, of course). These are rare, but Amoco used to be the main major company to do this. I don't know if they still do. In these cases, Amoco owns the oil until it's sold. Amoco can call the dealer at any time and change the cost, and then the dealer needs to change their price.

In most cases, the dealers receive the load and then gets invoiced for it and they pay according to their terms.

In no case does the dealer hand the driver a sack of doubloons to pay for the load of fuel.

[time2roll]

JRscooby wrote:

schlep1967 wrote:


My thoughts are that some of the smaller stations may stop filling there diesel tanks simply because they don't have the capitol to pay for thousands of gallons at that price.

This makes 0 sense in time of rising prices. You buy 10,000 gallons, expecting to sell for $4.00 a gallon. But the price goes up, and you sell that fuel for average price of $5, you have $10,000.00 extra to pay for the next tank full.
Dropping price is more likely to hurt a station that pays for fuel up front.

Never underestimate the will and resources of a fuel station owner.