by John Keller | Dec 6, 2012 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
Casey’s announced their retail fuel margins were $0.167 per gallon in Q2 of the 2013 fiscal year. That retail fuel margin is slightly ahead of their stated company goal of $0.140 per gallon. However, retail same store fuel gallons sold was down 2.9%, failing to meet the Casey’s corporate goal of increasing same store volume by 1%. This is the second consecutive quarter where same store retail fuel volume gallons sold was down by over 2.5%.
From a fuel price management perspective, these results indicate a classic case of pulling a lever to increase fuel margins to the point where volume results suffer.
Retail fuel margins for the same period last year were $0.149 per gallon.
by John Keller | Dec 5, 2012 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News
In their Annual Energy Outlook 2013 Reference case released today, the US Energy Information Administration predicted the demand for motor fuels will continue to decline next year and beyond through 2040. In other words, the size of the fuel volume pie is going to continue to shrink, impacting all those in the fuel price management industry for the foreseeable future.
The US EIA cites as a root cause the new vehicle fuel economy requirement that increases vehicle efficiency from 32.6 miles per gallon in 2011 to 47.3 miles per gallon in 2025. The US EIA projects this vehicle efficiency requirement will reduce gasoline use in 2025 by .5 million bpd compared to 2012.
The report also projects that diesel fuel consumption will be somewhat offset by the use of liquid natural gas in heavy-duty vehicles.
From a fuel price management perspective, this highlights the ongoing competitive nature of the retail fuels business as c-stores and grocery chains continue to fight for an ever shrinking total fuels volume market. Only those companies with the most efficient fuel pricing software will be successful in such a highly competitive environment.
by John Keller | Dec 4, 2012 | Industry News
Today the NPD Group reported c-store traffic was down 2.1% in Q3 of the 2012 calendar year compared to the same quarter of 2011. The report went on to say that major oil company branded c-store chains saw an even sharper decline. Traffic declined to 5.9 visits per 30 days during the quarter.
The NPD Group is a global information and advisory services company providing store market research. The NPD Group provides the Convenience Store Monitor, tracking the purchasing behavior of more than 51,000 c-stores.
The complete article may be found here.
Fuel analysts may refer to this report as another benchmark for their fuel price management systems as they monitor fuel volumes for the quarter.
by John Keller | Nov 30, 2012 | Retail Fuel Margins
In their weekly report released today, OPIS said retail fuel margins dropped for the fourth consecutive week. Retail fuel margins now stand at $0.167 per gallon.
Retail fuel margins lost a total of $0.20 per gallon over the month of November, erasing all October gains. Retail fuel margins are now at levels last seen on October 12, 2012.
From a fuel price management perspective, one can only hope the year can finish at these levels and the November trend will stop.
by John Keller | Nov 23, 2012 | Industry News
OPIS reported this week that retail fuel margins declined for the third straight week. Fuel margins now stand at $0.192 per gallon. That is a $0.022 per gallon decrease from last week.
Retail fuel margins have lost over $0.17 per gallon over the past three weeks and now stand at levels last seen in early October.
by John Keller | Nov 19, 2012 | Industry News
The city of Chicago has selected a new fleet of garbage trucks to be electric vehicles rather than hybrids or compressed natural gas vehicles. The award is based on research using a city bus with the same technology from Motiv Power Systems, the contract award winner based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Conclusions from the research are that operations costs will be reduced by 50% over an eight year period.
The range of these trucks will be 60 miles.
From a fuel price management perspective, this award won’t cause even a ripple in the fuel volume market, but it is one more data point showing how overall fuel demand is likely to decrease as municipalities and other government fleet vehicles start using alternative fuels besides gasoline and diesel.
The article announcing the award may be find here.
by John Keller | Nov 16, 2012 | Retail Fuel Margins
For the week ending November 16, 2012, OPIS reports that retail fuel margins dropped again. This is the second straight week of fuel margin declines.
Fuel margins now stand at $0.214 per gallon. That represents a decrease of $0.078 per gallon, resulting in a combined decrease over the past two weeks of over $0.15 per gallon.
Fuel margins are now back to levels last seen in mid-October, over four weeks ago.
by John Keller | Nov 10, 2012 | Fuel Pricing Software, PriceAdvantage
In their quarterly results released today, Susser Holdings announced their retail fuel volumes were up year over year, while retail fuel margins were lower.
Average fuel volumes sold per store per month increased 6.6% to approximately 132,000 gallons per store. But retail fuel gross margins declined from $0.277 per gallon from the same period last year to $0.201 per gallon this quarter.
From a fuel price management perspective, these financial results hit home the point that it’s nearly impossible to make gains in both retail fuel volumes and retail fuel margins. Pull the lever to increase volumes, and fuel margins will have to be sacrificed. Change strategies to improve fuel margins, and fuel volumes will suffer.
Only with a fuel price management optimization solution like PriceAdvantage can the fuel manager keep a close watch on both levers to achieve corporate goals.
by John Keller | Nov 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
According to the latest OPIS report, retail fuel margins reversed their three week trend and lost ground this week. Fuel margins dropped $0.076 to an average margin of $0.292 per gallon. This single week drop erases all fuel margin gains over the past two weeks.
by John Keller | Nov 6, 2012 | Retail Fuel Margins
In their Q3 fiscal results, TravelCenters of America announced their quarterly retail fuel margins were improved over last year, but retail fuel volumes were lower. Overall net income for the quarter was down $1.8 million.
For the three months ended September 30, 2012, retail fuel gross margins were up 2.4% from the same quarter last year. Total retail fuel volumes were down 6.8% year over year. Net income for the quarter was down $1.8 million compared to Q3 last year.
TravelCenters of America operates 192 company-owned stores which sold a total of 481 million gallons of fuel for the quarter. That equates to 2.5 million gallons of fuel per store for the quarter, or 835,000 gallons of fuel per store per month. The NACS annual store average is 124,000 gallons per month, so clearly TravelCenters continues to operate a high volume model.
