In their Q3 quarterly earnings report, Hess Corporation announced today their retail fuels volumes for the quarter were 2.5% lower than the same period last year.
Total c-store revenues were down 6% for the same quarter year over year.
For the nine months ending September 30, 2012, total retail fuels volumes are down 1.5% compared to the same nine months last year.
MasterCard reported in their SpendingPulse data that US gasoline demand is 3.8% lower year over year.
For the two weeks ending October 26, 2012, fuel volumes were down 1.6%. The four week average over the 28 days ending October 26 was down 2.4%. The Midwest region of the country had the most significant drop in fuel demand, while the Rocky Mountain states had the smallest drop.
From a fuel price management perspective, this reinforces the fact that the fuel volume pie continues to shrink. Fuel analysts must take into consideration the shrinking demand as they review volume performance, and as they set retail fuel volume targets for next year.
Retail fuel margins continued on an upswing this week, reaching $0.368 per gallon which is up $0.011 from a week ago. That is according to the weekly OPIS report released each Friday.
The winning streak stands at three consecutive weeks. Just two months ago, retail fuel margins were at $0.143 per gallon, making this $0.22 per gallon increase since then a welcome relief. Two months remain in the year, and from a fuel price management perspective, fuel retailers are looking to hang on to margins in order to make up for the suffering of previous quarters.
In the Marathon Petroleum Q3 fiscal results, Speedway announced today that both their quarterly retail fuel margins and retail fuel volumes were lower compared to the same period last year.
For the three months ended September 30, 2012, retail fuel margins were at $0.1100 per gallon, down from $0.1257 last year. Total retail fuel volumes were 779 million gallons for the quarter, compared to 775 million for the same period last year, but same store fuels volumes for the quarter were down 3.9% year over year. Speedway operates 89 more stores than last year at this time.
In their Q3 fiscal results, Tesoro announced today their quarterly retail fuel margins were improved over last year, but same store retail fuel volumes were lower.
For the three months ended September 30, 2012, retail fuel margins were at $0.19 per gallon, up $0.03 for the same quarter last year. Total retail fuel volumes were also up from last year, but because fuel volumes were spread over an additional 223 stores more than last year, fuel volumes per same store were down 1% year over year.
Tesoro company-owned stores averaged 152,076 gallons per month for the quarter, roughly 22% higher than the NACS national annual average of 124,000 gallons of fuel per store per month.
Valero Energy Corporation reported their retail fuel margins were $0.147 per gallon for the first nine months of the fiscal year, up from $0.146 for the same period in 2011. Retail fuel gallons were 5,114 gallons per day per store for this period, up from 5,053 for the same period last year.
These retail fuel management results reflect a continuing strong fiscal year for the Valero retail fuel group.
Retail fuel margins jumped $0.127 per gallon this week to $0.357 per gallon, according to the weekly OPIS report. That is the second weekly gain, and one of the largest retail fuel margin increases of the year. Retail fuel teams have now seen retail fuel margins increase $0.196 per gallon since mid-October.
From a fuel price management perspective, this is a great news for the fuel retailer, who now may have enough margin to help offset the decreased volumes from the peak travel time of year, and the poor margins of July, August and September.
Congratulations to Parker’s on the successful opening of their 28th store. Parker’s uses PriceAdvantage as their cloud solution to manage fuels prices and monitor company-wide fuels performance down to the store level.
According to a WTOC Channel 11 interview with Greg Parker, president and CEO of Parker’s, now is the right time to expand in the c-store industry. “We are hoping to open a new store every two months for the foreseeable future. We think it is the right time to be growing. Land costs are coming down and construction costs are down. Unemployment is up. There are a lot of good people out there looking for jobs. Money is cheap. This is a great time to be growing,” said Parker. The channel 11 interview may be found < a href="http://www.wtoc.com/story/19357405/new-parkers-convenience-store-to-open-in-rincon" target="_blank">here.
The PriceAdvantage team is proud to have Parker’s as a PriceAdvantage fuel price management customer and to contribute to their continued success.
Retail fuel margins rose $0.069 per gallon this week to $0.230 per gallon, according to the weekly OPIS report. That is a reversal of a two week trend, and nearly returns retail fuel margins to September 28 levels, where margins stood at $0.244 per gallon.
From a fuel price management perspective, this is a welcome relief and offers fuel pricing teams a chance to make up for lost margins the first half of October.
Retail fuel margins dropped $0.03 per gallon this week to $0.161 per gallon, according to the weekly OPIS report. That is the second consecutive retail fuel margin drop in two weeks. Retail fuel margins are now at September 21 levels.
From a fuel price management perspective, two consecutive weeks of retail fuel margin drops should get the attention of any fuel manager, since there are only 11 more weeks in the year to maximize fuels volume and margin.
