Thursday, May 20, 2010

Gas prices -- always lockstep the same

What I find amazing is how open and obvious the coordination of gas prices is. It's exactly the same price, lock step, changed at the same time.

Heavens above, the price of milk varies from store to store. Surely gasoline isn't so a so much more perfect market?


Toronto Star
Dana Flavelle Business Reporter 

The price of crude oil has fallen 19 per cent in the past two weeks but prices at the gas pump in Ontario have barely budged. Why? It depends who you ask.

Everyone agrees the two don't always rise and fall in tandem, at least not in the short term.

But that's where the agreement ends.

Gas price watcher Dan McTeague says Canada's highly concentrated, poorly regulated oil industry is able to "tack on" what he calls "extra mystery cents" to the wholesale price of gasoline paid by gas retailers.

"While you'd think Canadian refiners would observe market forces, they don't have to," said the Liberal MPP for Pickering-Scarborough East.

"That's why I'm getting a lot of letters from the public. How is crude going down and the price at the pumps not falling as much as they should?"

... .

1 comment:

Fillibluster said...

"Everyone agrees the two don't always rise and fall in tandem, at least not in the short term. "

Oh, they rise in tandem. Every time.