for those of us interested, i think we need a new forum heading that just tracks the daily price of diesel in different areas. might be fun to see how fast it rises or how long it takes to get to x price.

$8 a gallon

$10 a gallon

$30 a gallon

 $ one arm, one leg, 2 pints of blood, your firstborn, all future earnings on a $10,000 CD per  gallon

that type of stuff.

 

corpus christi texas, may 28th, just jumped 10 cents from yesterday to $3.79 per gallon.

funny how it always goes up exactly 10 cents.

I read this story on how these C-stores were making  1 or 2 cents per gallon, but their profits were in the fact they sold so much. so if STRIPES (bought out circle K) was making 2 cents per gallon yesterday at $3.69 per gallon, today they are making 2 cents still? did their costs go up 10 cents per gallon on something?

 something smells fishy in denmark methinks.

anyhow, just an idea. i know there are tracker sites, but it'd be cool to do it ourselves and not rely on some form of "big brother" or "media bias" or "paid advertising" or whatever else you can think of.

 

man i cant wait till i can fully produce from JC (jatropha curcas), my main supplier of saplings has 100 left. sure hope he will take my order for a few more.

Central New Jersey $4.75 a gallon as of May 26 (the last time I looked) up from $4.69 May 24.

The stations are raising prices speculation on the price rising on their next delivery. If their cost doesn't increase...pure profit.

The prices sky rocketed after Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast then dropped. Did the stations (and oil companies) return any of the profits they got gouging the public...I don't think so.

I have a freind that has a Valero store    I see the price he pays for fuel   and all that 1-2 cents is straight up BS.  They don't make a killing but at 1-2 cents they couldn't pay the electric to run the pumps.  Their profit margin is around 8-10 cents a gallon and when the price to them comes down they take their time lowering the price they charge. There are some times when price drops that they might make as much as 25 cents a gallon. so don't believe everything you read in the paper.   Last night he was selling diesel for $4.69   and paying $4.62    I'll post the next time I read the price. 

Diesel at the quickie marts around here is selling for $5.19

great replies, I was pretty sure that 1-2 cent per gallon profit was BS. and the Katrina reference, pure perfection. they didnt lower prices at all, but all you saw on the news was those few guys getting busted for price gouging. what about the gouging that goes on everyday as we seem to be finding out?

i know its impossible to do, but wouldnt it be just freaking awesome if everyone could bike or walk to work for a month? could you imagine how many brokers, prospectors, drillers, exec's,  ceo's and others would be frothing at the mouth going stark raving mad?

on the other hand, china and india would buy enough to make up the slack so it probably wouldnt happen. fun to think about though LOL.

OH! and have you ever heard this one? somehow, the gas is cheaper up north because we have to truck it from all of the refineries in the south? jeez who came up with that one?

its time for a change, just wish we knew the change to make. seems to be a conflaguration of biofuel, solar, wind and other such new and old technologies.

 

ok todays regular prce is 3.79   cost is 3.69    diesel is selling for 4.69 and cost is 4.58   so you see the 1-2 cent provfit is just totally BS and if the suppliers lower their price you won't see it at the pumps until someone else starts to lower their prices and other stations compete for customers.   gPrice goes up fast come down slow.  I have seen it where this station will make $.25 a gallon  before lowering the price to compete with the Shell station one block down the road.

I live in Napa, Ca and diesel prices have climbed as much as 10 cents over night. Hell prices climbed 5 cents the same night the cost of a barrell dropped $3 bucks.

Dino diesel may be jumping by 10 cents but BIOdiesel here in the Seattle area jumped from around $4 to $5.60 in a few short months!! My wife is ticked off that I insisted we become an all diesel family and spent $50 grand buying cars to do so.....and now the prices for BD are ridiculous and still climbing. My plans for producing my own have been blocked by the thousands of people (spurred on by nightly news coverage of "cheap fuel from free oil") clamoring and fighting over the few gallons of grease from behind restaurants. I have yet to find ONE restaurant that has not already been hit up by half a dozen home brewers. People are even stealing it from behind restaurants.

Potential diesel enthusiasts should do their math before buying a diesel vehicle - compare it to buying a Prius or other high mileage gas vehicle. Personally, I am now doing this purely for environmental reasons - and even that is questionable at times. You cannot brew your own if you live in an area where it is popular (as I do) since there are FAR more people and biodiesel companies looking for cooking oil than there are restaurants to supply it. And, you will pay a fortune for BD at the pump. If you decide to save significant money by going with dino-diesel you will still be paying significantly more than you would for gasoline!

$4.80 for diesel in my local area.  bd prices tend to be $.50-$.75 more than that.

Some misconceptions / non logical thinking in this thread.

The 1-2 cents profit the stations talk about is =NET= profit.  Profit after =ALL= expenses have been paid for.

The difference between what a place buys something for and what they sell it to you for is =GROSS= profit.

So if you are making 1-2 cents net profit on fuel and the cost to you as a station for fuel goes up 10 cents, you are losing 8-9 cents for every gal of fuel you sell and must raise prices by 10 cents or reduce costs by that amount in order to get back to 1-2 cents profitability.

IOW, the 1-2 cent profit per gallon of fuel sold claim is very likely not BS.

The picture of the lone heroic home brewer making bd from WVO is another idea that is rapidly becoming more myth than reality.

The best way for people to do bd at this point in anything but the most rural settings is to form communtiy fuel coops like we used to for food coops.  bd production costs scale in such a way that it is better for most peopl if bd is made on a community scale rather than on an individual scale.

Fuel coops will also act as a control on potential bd price gouging by commercial concerns.   

The cost to the station For Dino -diesel has dropped yesterdays price was $4.36 and the price on the sign is still $4.69    so you see the price to the customers don't follow the price to the station. it might be several days before the price to the customer drops if it does at all.  Unless another station drops their price I doubt any prices will drop at all.  

Greg Moss:

The cost to the station For Dino -diesel has dropped yesterdays price was $4.36 and the price on the sign is still $4.69    so you see the price to the customers don't follow the price to the station. it might be several days before the price to the customer drops if it does at all.  Unless another station drops their price I doubt any prices will drop at all.  

In contrast, of the 4 stations nearest me 1 has gone OoB because of high fuel costs, 1 has cut back from being a 24x7 to much more limited hours (and may still go OoB), 1 is a Shell that has never had the lowest price and is now selling diesel @ $4.86, and 1 is a station that stays alive because local commercial truckers use it.

BJ's in my local area has told me they won't carry diesel (they have the best price in the area for gas) because they think the cost is too volatile and too unpredictable.

If your station is paying 436 and selling for 469, that's a (469-436)/469= 7% gross profit margin.  From that they have to subtract all their operating expense +and+ have some margin for error +and+ end up cash positive.

When you start with a 7% gross margin, it does not take much in the way of unpredictability or volatility in either price or supply to push you into taking a loss.

You may be able to absorb some losses, but you if you do not make up for them at some point, or if you keep taking them, you are going to go broke..

 

 All that is fine   but here the majority of stations are convenience stores where they make the profit from inside sales.  You know the 200% mark up on a Coke.  That is where the money is at   the lower price on fuel just gets them in the door so they can make money from high profit margin products,   like the 3.99 for a pint bottle of bleach.   I know they have to make some money off gas and diesel  to turn the pumps on but that is only a draw.  I had an old girl friend here family had a convinence store and a real nice one too. couldn't sell anything there for the longest time because the store down the street had gas.  They contracted with the Exxon distributor to put pumps in and the business really took off. Now they have the busiest store in the area.  Gas and deisel pumps are the draw, people will stop and buy inside products if they have to get gas but not stop if they don't need fuel.  Funny how it works but that how the public is.   Oh and the Exxon pumps   pay the store a straight 5 cents a gallon for gas     set price.  

 Dino diesel prices are dropping like a brick   tonights price for the station is $4.185   Still selling it for $4.69 though. It should start to go down soon    Gas has dropped 10 cents across all grades.  

Hello All,

Great post.

$ 5.19 for dd here in Murrieta today. I think I got lucky that I already secured a source for the oil. What are we supposed to do when that grease bubble bursts and crashes down?????

Should we then all start growing algae?

What tickes me off is when the gas station's turn off the receipt printer at the pump, so they MAKE you come inside in hopes you would buy something else.

(First they come up with the great idea about convenient fueling at the pump with the credit card, then they realize how it hurts business,duh....)

Thomas 

 The thing that really gets my juices flowing is that all the Biodiesel buffs have been touting price stability as one of biodiesel's benefits and this is back when we were living in a $2.75/gallon world.   Now with prices approaching $5/gallon, I'm wondering what is going on.  Can somebody who has used this stability claim chime in and repent?

 

thanks,

Daniel 

what a can of worms this turned out to be. so far, the theories are, 2 cents profit -net- or gross- at the pump is BS (very feasible)

they take that kind of hit just to get you into the store to buy stuff marked up what 150% or so? (incredibly feasible)

the gas giants pay a flat rate of 5 cents per gallon (totally feasible)

they turn off the printer for your receipt so you have to come in the store in the off chance you'll buy some of their marked up stuff (this has GOT to be true) loaf of bread at a c-store 2.89, loaf of bread at a major shopping outlet (.99 - 1.49) (ok, rough estimates)

I absolutely love the co-op deal. you grow 5 acres of corn, i'll grown 5 acres of green beans, joe will grow 5 acres of squash, john, 5 acres of onion, etc etc etc.

we all trade bushel for bushel and every one has what they want or need.

 sorry to hear about the mad rush for WVO making your 50K purchase of diesel cars even MORE expensive. stick with it though, WVO isnt the only way to go.

i've read up on the 4 or 5 highest producing plants you can put the oil directly into the tank (ok, so some wash and tritrate or add this or that, but JC is straight from press to tank).

(oh and sorry, forgot 2 passwords so now i'm just using this one, its clint in texas), alongside putting in the bid for 10.87 acres (at a stupid price)

i found 5 acres in victoria at 3k per acre. going to see it this weekend. I think i can get this one easy and fast.

so call it 16 acres of jatropha curcas. I think i'll make a pool and swim in it.

darn good discussion guys. keep it up.