Achi news desk-
If you drive a car and live in one of Alberta’s two largest cities, you may have noticed this week that depending on the gas station, you could be seeing completely different prices for fuel — sometimes up to 20 cents a liter different.
“It has a lot to do with what I referred to many, many years ago – and I actually hashtagged it #gasbarshenanigans,” said Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy and the man behind to the website gaswizard.ca, told Global News on Wednesday.
“Gas stations today, to buy their fuel, with a wholesale price here in Edmonton of about 96 or 97 cents a litre, when you add all the taxes – federal, provincial, carbon taxes, and then you throw ‘the GST in – you’ Again looking at around $1.43 (lit) or $1.44 (per litre) to replace the fuel you sell.
“So if you’re selling for $1.50 or $1.52, … you’re making seven to eight cents as retail profit, which allows you to cover the cost of operating your gas station. It allows you to honor credit cards that sometimes come at one or two or three percent of the actual costs. … But if you’re selling for $1.30, you’d better have a very generous uncle or some other kind of strategy, because you’re selling gasoline for 13 or 14 cents a liter below cost.”
A Global News crew drove past a gas station in downtown Edmonton selling gas for $1.34 a liter on Wednesday and saw long lines at its pumps.
Drivers line up at a gas station in Edmonton on May 22, 2024.
Global News
McTeague said he doesn’t believe refineries will sell gas station gasoline for less than what it costs them to produce.
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“Unless you have some sort of model that allows you to push larger volumes, to get down to $1.32 or $1.34 you need to sell maybe a lot of other products in your store – a lot of beef jerky,” he said. .
“I don’t know what their limit is on these things, but you’d rather have a lot of people coming to your store as a grocery store rather than as a retail gasoline store because you won’t make any money. .”
McTeague noted that although Calgary and Edmonton see large variations in price per litre, Calgary continues to have more expensive fuel for consumers, about two to three cents per liter more than for Edmonton consumers.
A liter of regular gas in Calgary now sells for 161.9 cents at many stations. (May 22, 2024).
Global News
“It’s the cost of transportation – pipelines – from the refineries,” McTeague said. “Either way, prices we’re seeing right now are very indicative of what we’re seeing in markets pretty much across most of the US Midwest and across Western Canada.
“If you’re getting gasoline in Calgary for less than $1.52, you’re doing really well. And if you’re in Edmonton, buying for less than $1.50, you’re the one ahead, not the gas station. So take advantage of it while you can. Things like this don’t always happen, and they certainly don’t always last.”
& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
