<VV> Gas Brands

[Tim Verthein]

Egad! He's not dead! He surfaces right here on VV!

Saw the bit about gas brands. Here's what I know at least in my part of the country in Northern Minnesota.

It's all the same. It all comes out of the same trucks and goes to all the stations.  We have BP, Mobile, Holiday, Super America, Spur, Phillips 66, and several other brands in the area.  Since this is pretty much small town USA, it's not too hard to run into the truck filling up a station's tanks, and it's not too hard to wind up behind that truck in traffic, on the road to the next town, etc.  My observations over the years is... the same independent distributor dumps a load into virtually every tank in town, no matter the brand. He goes from the BP to the Spur to the independent guy down the block.  The very same truck that might fill the SA in Grand Rapids drives 35 miles to Hibbing and puts the same stuff in the BP station where, where it's generally 25 cents a gallon cheaper for the exact same gas. Here in Grand Rapids, MN we have a reputation of ALWAYS having higher gas prices than any surrounding town.  Get 20 miles away and gas drops a quarter. 

Years ago when I worked at a Phillips station (How long ago?  I was on duty the day gas hit a buck a gallon for the first time, AND I used to get to carry out and set up signs that said things like "Limit 5 Gals Today" or "No Gas Today")  We used to have certain additives that we dumped into certain underground tanks for various grades of gas. I've been told BP stations do this today.  So when you're buying one grade over another, etc the difference is in the cans they dump in the gas. 

All I know is, around here it all comes out of the same truck, so where you buy it depends on convenience, if you like the employees and if they're open the hours you need 'em.  ALL the stations in Grand Rapids have the SAME price ALL the time.  If one goes up, within an hour, they ALL are at the same price. You can see the price change wave move thru town. It's mind boggling.  Yet, 30 miles away up the road in Hibbing, the stations down the main drag can have 4 or 5 different prices!  And it all comes from the same regional distributor.  AMAZING!

Tim in Bovey