Soaring costs are squeezing gas station owners too

Andre van der Valk hasn’t been paid in six months.

He has a job, though, as owner of four service stations in Southern California. He hasn’t taken a salary this year so he can pour all his money into buying fuel for his stations.


Despite the jaw-dropping prices at the pump — they jumped 19 cents a gallon in California to $4.43 in the last week and averaged more than $4 a gallon nationwide for the first time, the Energy Department said Monday — service station owners aren’t making the killing that motorists assume.

That’s because credit card fees, the price of tanker-loads of fuel and other costs are rising so rapidly that station owners haven’t been able to keep pace despite the record prices they’re charging.

“People see $4 gas, and they think these retailers are making a fortune,” said Ben Brockwell, a director at Oil Price Information Service, which tracks fuel prices. “The reality is these guys are being stressed to the limit.”

LA Times