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mandmlarson (Anonymous) says…

I found it very convenient for candidate Brenner to blindly take shots at the small businessmen and women in the petroleum marketer business. Why doesn't Mr. Brenner simply talk to one of the local marketers before labeling them price gougers? This kind of political pandering is shameful and slanderous. Had the candidate visited with any retail location he would have found that several things enter into the pricing decision….credit card fees (now higher that ever equaling from .08 to .12 cents per gallon, or more than most marketers are making per gallon), securing credit (a load of gasoline jumped from $12,000 per load to $32,000 per load and suppliers want surity they will be paid) and local property taxes based on resort valuations (certainly higher than Grand Junction or Denver). Several other items factor enter into the current economic environment on the Western Slope including labor costs and regulatory mandates.

No other industry is as competitve as the petroleum marketing industry. No other industry has to post their prices on the street for everyone to see for blocks down the street…along with all their competition. While marketers may be enjoying a slightly higher margin while prices go down (by no means sufficient to pay their bills), it will not last for long. Someone is always wanting a bigger share of this declining market and willing to give gasoline away in order to get customers in their store. Demand is down due to high prices (and altered consumer behavior) and also due to higher mile-per-gallon vehicles. Retailers have experienced the worst margins this year since 1974. 75% of your gasoline dollar goes to the crude supplier. 10-13% goes to refining and distribution. 11% goes to taxes. This leaves only 2-3% for the retailer. 70% of a retailers gross sales come from gasoline from which they glean only 34% of their margin. Inside sales accounts for almost all of a retailers profit, limited as they are.

I hope the voters will recognize the obvious lack of due diligence done by this candidate. His intent to grab headlines (which he did) without doing any homework or simply asking a retailer, was damaging to an industry that is already reeling from sustainability issues. Once again, retail petroleum marketers are ignorantly labeled “big oil” when that notion could not be further from the truth. We do not need this kind of headline pandering politicain in Denver.