British Columbia Fuel Prices

[Lodesman]

CaptK,

Sorry, maybe I wasn't that clear when I said "island chain of the Caribbean." Again that's a not a "beeline route", which I take to mean a straight line from pt A to B; it's the line that follows the curve of the islands. My figures are also fairly rough as I don't have a stack of large-scale charts of the area handy. I assumed most cruisers would generally go from island to island rather than making a 600-mile jump over open sea. That said, I'm sure there are some that do just that, but again the equivalent exists taking the "outside route" West of Vancouver Island, in a little body of water I like to call the Pacific.

[Amgine]

You may have noted the previous numbers of $1.39 vs $1.05, which is not too large a difference except it's per liter. Translating that to gallons it's a difference of $1.29 per gallon ($3.97 vs. $5.26).

Now maybe you won't travel 10 miles out of your way to save a dollar a gallon, but those were prices within 10 miles of each other.

I think it's a good example of this Cruiser's Forum to give each other the 'head's up' about where the best/worst prices, service, and quality can be found. And that's more than just Westmarine vs. Defender. Don't you?

Amgine

[CaptainK]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

CaptK,

Sorry, maybe I wasn't that clear when I said "island chain of the Caribbean." Again that's a not a "beeline route", which I take to mean a straight line from pt A to B; it's the line that follows the curve of the islands. My figures are also fairly rough as I don't have a stack of large-scale charts of the area handy. I assumed most cruisers would generally go from island to island rather than making a 600-mile jump over open sea. That said, I'm sure there are some that do just that, but again the equivalent exists taking the "outside route" West of Vancouver Island, in a little body of water I like to call the Pacific.

I see what you mean now!!

[rsn48]

I have to laugh at the Beeline route comment. BC coastal waters have over 3,000 islands, with a coast line with fjords, channels and a host of "other" interesting and challenging coastal features to pump up your navigational experience. Crossing the Atlantic from Halifax or New York to Europe is Beeline, racing the Victoria to Maui is Beeline, sailing the Gulf Islands isn't Beeline (nor would you want it to be).

[Brent Swain]

There is enough coastline in BC to go 2/3rds of the way around the world.
Posting BC prices would help cruisers from Olympia Wa to Alaska.This should also be done in other popular cruising areas.
An ex coca cola executive said that it would be simple for consumers to lower fuel prices.All they would have to do is boycott the biggest fuel provider in a country. This would force them to lower their prices, starting a price war, as long as consumers didn't drop the boycott as soon as they did a slight drop in prices.
Brent

[Capct]

It will never work as long as demand outstrips supply

[Pblais]

An ex coca cola executive said that it would be simple for consumers to lower fuel prices.All they would have to do is boycott the biggest fuel provider in a country.

Must be why they fired him. Tha man is an idiot.

[Amgine]

That former is exec is correct; any reasonably large boycott would easily force a drop in prices and would trigger a price war. Such a boycott is extremely unlikely unless fuel prices are seriously hurting the average household. Which they aren't, or there wouldn't be such a market for SUVs or such a lack of market for efficiency vehicles. And given such a situation even a minor dip in prices would break any attempt at a boycott.

British Columbia has refused to allow the construction of additional refineries. Much of the processed fuels are imported from Washington, USA, resulting in higher fuel costs in addition to other costs. It's been their choice to help create a situation which increased the price of fuel faster than elsewhere, but there's no reason boaters in BC can't try to help each other by telling each other where the best/worst prices can be found.

Amgine

[rsn48]

Here is British Columbia to lower gas prices is easy, to get those who rant and rave but are lazy, well that's another matter. What to do, simple, boycott the stores that are attached to the gas stations. Purchase your gas, you have to do that, but you don't need to buy your twinky at the station store.

The trouble with this plan is it relies on a bunch of lazy sots who will complain instantly, but actually do something that might take them 5 minute out of their way (purchasing the twinky at a corner store), heck no. So if folks in BC boycotted the stores at Chevron, Petro Can, etc, I know this would force a move on the gas folks.

[Capct]

If you boycott say Chevron all your doing is pushing the business over to Shell or Petro-Can or someone else ...right?

If you boycott them all,how do YOU get around?
If you buy the twinkie somewhere else , the MBA's will probably just change the price of gas to cover the loses.Or if everyone does it , they would just get rid of the stores and put in whatever works.....medical clinics if they had to!!!....anything to squeeze more money outta ya.

In the mean time you NEED the fuel.So does everyone else.Thats the problem you cannot change the price of a free market driven commodity when the demand for it outstrips the supply of it.You need to address the demand or the supply.....or the tax

The government could reduce the price by 30-40% if they just stopped taxing it...if people are serious about reducing the price of fuel.Start pestering your government officials....threaten not to vote for them if they dont reduce the tax...if everyone started bitching maybe just maybe they might.You stand a better chance of convincing your local politician to stop taxing gas than you do of convincing your wife she cant drive to the grocery store anymore

[rsn48]

Not boycotting the gas stations, just the gas station stores. I'm not the first to come up with this idea, many feel the same way but no one has organized it. And many of the gasoline chains own all kinds of restuarants I didn't know about here in the greater Vancouver area, for example, White Spots (a local chain).

You would still purchase your gas from Chevron and oil etc, but not the not car related items like coffee, sandwiches, chocolate bars, etc. Usually the corner grocery stores are owned by folks who work incredibly hard for not a lot of money. I'm sure they would be happy for the extra business. For example, not one short block from my local Chevron is a local small corner store; I could just as easily buy my not car items from them.

Actual gas station or gas company boycotts don't work because as you say people have to get their gas from somewhere and its usually the one they have the credit card for; so no switching of allegiances - so I buy from Chevron. But I have no allegiance to the attached stores.

[Capct]

I guess if your goal is to drive the little guy outta business then its a sure winner.The only reason the trash and trinkets stores are there are to make the franchise owners a profit....because selling gas usually just covers there margins by a few pennies.
Nothing is achieved by driving these guys outta business.There is another little guy right behind him ready to gamble his life savings on a franchise .

I know what your saying and it is frustrating paying so much more than we are used to and I'm quite sure most people believe collusion is the watchword for these companies.But having worked directly in the oil patch in my past for many years and I'm still heavily involved with oil and gas trusts today from an investment perpective.I will tell you it is a function of the market.You won't believe me.But it is.

Morally corporations have no soul but they also have no inherant evil intent.They are there to make money for shareholders.

Certainly their profits are at an all time high and the crack spread is the widest it's been for decades.
Is it right ?....The answer is ....well its the market....right or wrong the free market dictates the price
Do we like it....hell no
Is it collusion....nope

can we change the price as individuals ....no

collectivelly we can all not buy gas for a month and the price would come down considerably.But the second everyone wants to fill up the price will be right back up there.

If you want to really offset the price of gasoline buy the stocks of those companies

[Amgine]

Though probably not active, criminal collusion. Rather seems to me they are playing a game of chicken, to see who will blink first.

For exactly the same reason people *should* organize protests to force lower prices because, yep you betcha, the profit margins and spread really is huge at the moment. Which means if the consumers choose to reduce their demand in response to (in their eyes) abusive prices, the prices will come down to still achieve reasonable profits.

I'm not agitating to organize a boycott, just pointing out the illogic of *not* advocating for the consumer. My family's oil-spending is as limited as we can get away with (less than 14 gals of diesel a month), and I expect to use about 30 gals over the course of the summer in the boat as well, less if the wind is favourable both ways... <grin> And we're not the low-end of the fuel economy at all here in BC, but we're definitely in the lower half.

I'm trying to reduce our use of fuel. I'll do the same with the boat, sailing in lighter conditions where I might once have motored through. And when I look for fuel prices I'll probably report them here.

Amgine

PS. I grew up in the retail gas business. And with most of our franchises the fuel was a loss leader. But we shopped around for best prices, and encouraged our customers to do the same, and complained to our jobbers about the pump prices. And we were run out of business by the big chains, not our customers.

[rsn48]

Here is a link to a chart of oil imports into the States from the top 15 countries. You'll notice that Canada is at the top of the list, also true for natural gas imports, Canada leads the way.

So how come I can get Canadian gas cheaper in the States than in BC? Taxes. Canada has socialized medicine and due to a 33 million population versus a 330 million population, scales of economy come into play as well economically speaking:

Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries

For security reasons and geographical reasons, the States finally decided to tie their horse to the Canadian hitching post. Haven't you noticed the American criticisms of Canada has diminished as finally the "Bush" administration finally figured out whose gas was going into their cars.

Because our taxation is heavier and I prefer to have our medical system, I don't mind paying higher taxes than the states, but I do mind paying more than Toronto or Montreal, especially when some wretched thing happened out east (can't remember what) to affect gas supply, but still we pay more. There can be 20 cents a litre difference [multiply that by 3.8 and you get the gallon difference - so 76 cents difference in gas] between Vancouver and Toronto. So in answer to your question, no I don't mind affecting the little guy.

In the sixties, I lived in Chicago. At that time, it was public policy of the Coca Cola company not to hire blacks. A boycott was attempted at Safeways through out the country to ask people not to purchase Coke but Pepsi instead; it didn't work. Folks did their primary grocery shopping at Safeway and they weren't about to change for something so unimportant as getting blacks hired.

So a new plan was hatched call "Operation Bread Basket." The idea was to boycott corner stores, even a 5 percent loss of business to them was profound, so through boycotting corner stores until the owner agreed to only carry Pepsi, the Coke corporation was affected; they gave in and agreed to hire blacks. There's a great three one hours specials called the Coke wars in which this issue was discussed. I knew about it because I helped out in the boycotts in the 60' at corner stores to help change policy.

Remove one brick from the wall and the wall won't collapse, remove 20 bricks from a wall and it might crack, remove a thousand bricks from the wall, it will collapse. This is how you have to affect oil companies; the little guy can affect the big guy, maybe not alone, but maybe five thousand of them can.

[Capct]

I agree with your brief assesment.Except I think governments should bite the bullet on fuel taxes in order to reduce the price rather than try and regulate the profit margins of oil companies in free markets.