{"id":1675601,"date":"2022-10-06T09:53:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T13:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1675601"},"modified":"2022-10-06T09:53:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T13:53:35","slug":"gasoline-prices-keep-climbing-but-retail-gas-station-margins-plunge-with-many-now-under-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gasoline-prices-keep-climbing-but-retail-gas-station-margins-plunge-with-many-now-under-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Gasoline Prices Keep Climbing, but Retail Gas Station Margins Plunge, With Many Now \u201cUnder Water\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgasoline-prices-keep-climbing-but-retail-gas-station-margins-plunge-with-many-now-under-water%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1675601&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Despite gas prices rising over the past weeks, retail gas stations are seeing their margins decrease, putting a strain on such businesses.<\/p>\n<p>The national average price of regular gas, as of Oct. 5, was $3.831 per gallon, up $0.26 from the previous day, $0.66 from a week back, and $0.45 a month ago, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/gasprices.aaa.com\/\">data<\/a> from American Automobile Association (AAA). In contrast, profit margins of gas stations have gone down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOPIS MarginPro shows retail gas margins are ~18cts\/gal nationwide. That\u2019s down 17cts\/gal in a week; 25cts\/gal in a mo.; and 54cts\/gal lower than end 1Q 2022. When one considers operating costs (labor, credit card fees, etc.), many stores are under water,\u201d noted Tom Kloza, an expert on North American fuel markets, a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TomKloza\/status\/1577309748101251078\">tweet<\/a>. on Oct. 4.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, the gross margin on gasoline was $0.309 per gallon, or 10.2 percent of the $3.03 per gallon average price, according to global trade association <a href=\"https:\/\/www.convenience.org\/Research\/FactSheets\/FuelSales\">NACS<\/a>. In the previous five years, retail gross margins on gas averaged $0.272 per gallon, which comes to 10.7 percent of the gas price.<\/p>\n<p>An analysis of weekly rolling average profit margin of 30,000 U.S. gas stations published at <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2022\/08\/09\/energy-profit-margins-gas-stations-proof-fuel-retailers-high-gas-prices-alex-kinnier\/\">Fortune<\/a> found that they only make a net profit of around $0.03\u20130.07 per gallon after factoring in costs such as labor, credit card transaction fees, insurance, and utilities.<\/p>\n<p>The net profit of gas stations comes to less than 2 percent, which is very low when compared to other high-profit industries like the banking sector, which is estimated to net around 30 percent margins.<\/p>\n<h2>Blaming Gas Stations and Companies, Strategic Reserve Release<\/h2>\n<p>While gas stations are dealing with low profit margins, the Biden administration is blaming rising <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-gasoline-prices\">gasoline prices<\/a> on these businesses.<\/p>\n<p>During a White House <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/do-it-now-biden-demands-gas-stations-drop-prices-as-they-rise-for-seventh-consecutive-day_4757308.html\">meeting<\/a> on Sept. 26, President Joe Biden insisted that gas stations and oil companies are making a \u201clot of profit\u201d due to which the public is paying the price of high inflation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump: Bring down the prices you\u2019re charging at the pump to reflect the cost you pay for the product. Do it now,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, two leading oil industry groups have raised concerns that the Biden administration might limit or ban the export of refined petroleum products to build domestic inventories of gasoline.<\/p>\n<p>If implemented, such a move will limit the markets for refiners, curb capacity, and push up gas prices in the long run, noted Patrick De Haan, an oil expert, in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GasBuddyGuy\/status\/1577386867569283072\">tweet<\/a>\u00a0on Oct. 5.<\/p>\n<p>Under the Biden administration, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve dropped to 422.858 million barrels of oil, as of Sept. 23, from 617 million barrels on Oct. 1, 2021. This is the lowest level since 1984.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/biden-draining-strategic-petroleum-reserve-like-campaign-credit-card-industry-official_4761678.html\">interview<\/a> with Just the News, Tim Stewart, the head of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, pointed out that the United States is selling more oil from its reserves than the production of medium-sized OPEC nations like Angola or Algeria are selling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re selling twice as much per day than we\u2019re producing out of Alaska. That puts us somewhere between Exxon and Conoco in terms of \u2026 the impact we\u2019re having on the daily supply\u2014and this is happening without new oil going in to replace it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-naveen-athrappully\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite gas prices rising over the past weeks, retail gas stations are seeing their margins decrease, putting a strain on such businesses.The national average price of regular gas, as of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1675601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}