| $2.00 Gas ?
From “Trade Only Today” Magazine - by Lindsey Savin
"Get used to $2 marina gasoline, says expert.
With fuel prices at many marinas already exceeding $2 per gallon, an industry expert says boaters can expect to pay top dollar to fill up through the busy summer months.
“We’re reaching unprecedented areas,” Kevin Little of Onyx-Mansfield Energy Services in Gainesville, Ga., said in a telephone interview this morning. “These are the highest prices we’ve seen in a long time.”
Onyx-Mansfield administers the fuel program of the Marina Operators Association of America. It also supplies several major marina customers around the United States, including the Flagship and Westrec chains, and Fort Lauderdale’s Bahia Mar.
Adjusted for inflation, Little says, fuel costs today are “on par” with those of the oil embargoes of the 1970s. “They are extremely high; higher than we’ve seen in recent years,” he says.
Little says the $1.75 to $1.80 per gallon prices gasoline stations are charging motorists today are extremely high for this time of year. Marinas typically mark prices up roughly 35 percent on the docks, he says, so most already are charging somewhere in the $2 range.
Little sees no sign of dramatic improvement any time soon. In fact, he says, at some point during the summer, “It wouldn’t surprise me to see prices at marinas approach the $3-per-gallon mark.”
Prices from suppliers can vary from day to day based on a variety of unpredictable circumstances, says Little. “It is a commodity-driven pricing structure, based on supply and demand,” he points out.
On average, Little says prices can fluctuate between 2 and 5 cents per gallon on a given day. Therefore, “Marinas need to be very conscious during the coming season of when they buy during the week,” he adds."
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