The expert talks about the large range of prices observed at various gas stations in Edmonton and Calgary

If you drive and live in one of Alberta's two largest cities, you may have noticed that gas prices vary dramatically depending on the gas station this week — sometimes as much as 20 cents a liter.

“This has a lot to do with what I said years ago and I hashtagged it #gasbarshenanigans,” Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy and the man behind the gaswizard.ca website, told Global News. on Wednesday.

“Gas stations today to buy their fuel, the wholesale price here in Edmonton is about 96 or 97 cents a litre, when you add all the taxes – federal, provincial, carbon taxes, and then you add GST.'It's about $1 to replace the fuel you sell Consider .43 (per liter) or $1.44 (liter).

“If you sell at $1.50 or $1.52, … you'll make seven to eight cents as a retail margin, which will cover the cost of operating your gas station. This allows you to honor credit cards that are sometimes one or two or three percent of actual expenses. … But if you're going to sell at $1.30, you better have a very generous cap or some other strategy, you're going to sell gasoline at 13 or 14 cents a liter below cost.”

A Global News crew drove by a gas station in downtown Edmonton on Wednesday that sells gas for $1.34 a liter and saw long lines at its pumps.

McTeague said he doesn't believe refineries will sell gasoline to gas stations for less than it costs to produce it.

“If you don't have some kind of model that allows you to scale up a lot, to get down to $1.32 or $1.34, you're probably going to have to sell a lot of other products in your store — a lot of beef,” he said.

“I don't know what their margins are on these things, but you better have a lot of people coming into your store as a grocery store, not as a gasoline retail outlet, because you're not going to make any money. .”

While McTeague is seeing larger price ranges per liter in both Calgary and Edmonton, Calgary has more expensive fuel for consumers, two or three cents more per liter than Edmonton consumers.

“That's the cost of the pipeline from the refineries,” McTeague said. “In any case, the prices we're seeing now reflect what we're seeing in the US Midwest and Western Canadian markets.

“If you can get gas under $1.52 in Calgary, you're doing pretty well. If you're in Edmonton, you're the leader, not the gas station, if you buy for less than $1.50. So use it while you can. Such situations do not always happen and they do not always last long.

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