by John Keller | Oct 13, 2010 | Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News
Recently three different retailers have announced they’ll be offering charging stations for electric cars. Two of the three are traditional fuel retailers: BP/Arco, and Murphy. The third retailer to announce the charging stations is Best Buy.
BP announced they’ll install 45 high-voltage chargers at various BP/Arco gas stations in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. These sites are in cities and states that are part of the federally supported Electric Vehicle project, managed by the charging company ECOtality. The Electric Vehicle Project is operating with a $114.8m grant from the US Department of Energy to install 1100 public recharging stations over a three year period. Installation of these chargers at BP/Arco stations is scheduled to begin in March 2011.
Murphy Oil USA announced they will demonstrate a fast charger station at one of their retail fuel stores in Tennessee. Murphy is working with Eaton Corporation to use the Tennessee store as an initial test of the quick charger before looking at expanding their reach to Murphy’s other 1000 locations.
The current expectation is that the BP/Arco stations will charge a set dollar amount for two to three minute increments. Their fast chargers will be able to give an electric car 12 to 15 miles worth of power every five minutes. That means their chargers will be able to recharge the Nissan Leaf in 26 minutes.
Best Buy will offer lower volt charging stations at their stores, where it will take one hour’s worth of charging to provide the same 12 to 15 miles worth of power. Best Buy is considering offering the charging stations through a club membership or frequent-purchaser program.
by John Keller | Oct 12, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News
In today’s US Energy Information Administration release of the latest weekly retail fuel prices, the average national price for all grades rose more than $.08 per gallon from the previous week. That’s the largest price increase in over six weeks.
The average national price of regular unleaded fuel rose from $2.73 to $2.81. Regional unleaded fuel prices ranged from a weekly increase of $.11 per gallon in the Central Atlantic states, to $.10 per gallon in New England, to $.06 per gallon on the West Coast. All regions of the country saw prices increase with the exception of the Rocky Mountains, which remained essentially unchanged at $2.79 per gallon.
Particularly hard hit was the city of Cleveland, which saw an increase of $.14 per gallon to $2.86. Across the country, the most expensive local averages for Unleaded was in San Francisco, with a price of $3.12 per gallon, up from $3.04 the week before. The lowest local averages for Unleaded were reported in Houston at $2.64, up $.08 from the previous week.
by John Keller | Oct 5, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News
Just how important is the c-store industry to the American economy, and the retail fuel industry specifically? Take a look at these statistics from an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as reported by NACS Online:
- There are 144,500 convenience stores in the USA as of 2010
- Total convenience store US sales for 2009 was $511 billion
- The average convenience store selling fuel sees 1,100 customers per day
- Convenience stores have an 80 percent share of the gasoline market
On a related note, in a Balvor/NACS Motor Fuels Retail Survey, fuel retailers surveyed sold an average of over 125,000 gallons of fuel per month.
Clearly the c-store industry plays a critical role in the daily lives of American consumers.
by John Keller | Oct 1, 2010 | Retail Fuel Margins
Marathon Oil reported in their quarterly financial earnings statement a 26% increase in retail fuel margins. Gasoline and distillate gross retail fuel margin per gallon averaged 13.28 cents in the second quarter of 2010, compared to 10.51 cents in the second quarter of 2009.
This earnings report is more good news in a long line of positive reports from c-store companies who are reporting increased retail fuel margins in 2010. At this rate, 2010 will go down in the history books as a blockbuster.
by John Keller | Oct 1, 2010 | Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News
The market research firm NPD Group reports that convenience store traffic and sales were up for the quarter ending June 2010 compared to a year ago. Convenience store traffic was up 8% and sales increased 11% over 2009. This is a reversal in the trend from 2009, when the number of visits was down.
The report is based on tracking the behavior of 49,999 convenience store shoppers in the USA. Over an average 30 day time period in the second quarter, the average number of visits customers made to a convenience store rose from 6.1 visits in 2009 to 6.4 visits in 2010.
The number of pay at the pump visits to buy fuel only are virtually the same year over year, while visits to purchase at the store only are increasing. The number of visits to buy both fuel at the pump and items in the store are declining. Consumers say the top two reasons for visiting convenience stores remain “convenience location” and “in-and-out-quickly”.
The research was reported by National Petroleum News at http://bit.ly/b2UBLA.
