Oil prices are at almost $50 per barrel. Auto fuel is around $1.80 per gallon.

Why is 100LL still over $4.00 and $5.00 per gallon? In some places it is over 3 times as much as auto fuel.

I have seen no significant decreases in price.

What SPIN is being used to justify this high price?

Are most of us flying less and enjoying it less?

flyer

Hi I will introduce myself first ,I have been looking at the boards here for a while. I operate a small airport in the white mountains of arizona.My name is Emilio. I cant really see why the price of av gas has not come down at the pumps in alot of places. Our wholesale price has dropped by alot we chose to pass that along to our pilots and I would think alot of other places would to one of the hardest things on GA has been and still is the price of fuel. With no GA I dont have a job it is also a passion of mine so I also am on the other end and have to buy gas to fly as well.

I'm guessing there are a lot of FBOs out there sitting on expensive
100LL (refined & purchased when crude was trading at $147+ per
barrel). I just looked, and crude traded as low as $49.75
per barrel this morning, and the current wholesale cost of regular
mogas is $1.06/gallon.

FWIW, there are FBOs out there selling 100LL right now for less
than $4/gallon (for example, Zephyrhills Municiple in Florida is
selling self serve 100LL for $3.35/gallon right now). The cheapest
100LL around my neck of the woods is currently $4.38/gallon.

Doesn't matter to me, 'cause 90+ percent of the flying I do is done
burning mogas, and when ethanol-free mogas is no longer available
at my (local) service stations, I have plans in place to obtain e0 mogas
directly from a local distributor by the tank-load (a number of my
neighbors have underground fuel tanks on their property).

FYI, I read somewhere (on a different board?) that a good rule of
thumb to determine the current wholesale cost of avgas is that it
is (roughly) equivalent to the current retail cost of premium auto
fuel. Locally, premium auto fuel is around $2.35/gallon right now.
Add roughly $1/gallon to that (for the FBO profit), and the theoretical
retail price of a current local load of 100LL by the tanker-load should
be around $3.35/gallon (that pans out with the amount the Zephyrhills
airport is charging right now....).

That is just about exactly right I know a few places sitting on there gas that was bought when it was expensive or more expensive I should say but I would say your figures are really close and the price difference from airport to airport would only then be because of region and freight and supplier cost.But you can go broke sitting on a full tank of gas less profit is better than no profit IMO.Then you have more room in the tank for some of that less expensive gas.

Besides the gas already in their tanks, I wonder if some fuellers contracted for future purchases at a "bargain" rate back when oil was twice today's price. I understand that some of the airlines did this, and now that oil prices are down again it's coming back to bite them in the ass.

Eric

While Jet fuel is traded on the futures market, my
understanding is that avgas is not.... (so no "hedging"
should be occurring in the retail avgas arena).

Most likely reason the price hasn't dropped significantly is the FBO's are still selling the last bulk purchase they made.

I know the local one, as prices were rising, didn't raise the prices on their fuel until they needed to make a new order. I suspect that as places sell off their existing stock the prices will come down again.

Of course there are lots of variables and won't discount the likely hood of prices being kept artificially high by suppliers just because they can.

I wonder how many FBO's price by the load? For example, 100 LL Self Serv is still $4.80 / gal at KRDM in Oregon, has been at that for months. But they have a huge tank and demand is going down ... a bunch. If they haven't ordered a new load since summer, then the price just sits there, making it more difficult to sell if airports around them are at a lower price with a smaller tank. Lucky for them, the gas is stable for a long time.

Actually after comparing on Air-Nav, it looks like up here on the high desert everybody is just price gouging. The prices are all pretty much the same at all the surrounding airports, Prineville is the only one much lower $4.15 and then you go to Albany over the hill and it is $3.95. Both Prineville and Albany are Air-BP, just about everybody else around here is Exxon.

Mogas would look awfully good today if airports only carried it.

N1593Y wrote:I wonder how many FBO's price by the load? For example, 100 LL Self Serv is still $4.80 / gal at KRDM in Oregon, has been at that for months. But they have a huge tank and demand is going down ... a bunch. If they haven't ordered a new load since summer, then the price just sits there, making it more difficult to sell if airports around them are at a lower price with a smaller tank. Lucky for them, the gas is stable for a long time.

I think you hit it on the head. Most FBO's make very little, if anything, on the fuel. It's got to be especially hard when prices drop, as you mentioned, surrounding airports with smaller tanks lower prices then fewer people go through the remaining stock. They'll sell it eventually as it's often cheaper and more convenient for local pilots to shop at home rather than fly off to another field.

That's a lot of it. Our price hovered at 5.28 for quite a while after they started dropping elsewhere, simply because we couldn't afford to lower that price. It cost us some business, and a shipment later, we brought it down to 4.03, where it stands now.
That's less than we paid for the last batch.

Because I was in a jam a couple weeks ago, I had to buy gas at Mansfield, Ohio (MFD). I didn't ask the price until I went to pay. $405 to fill a scout, or $6.13/ gallon. Holly molely, don't stop there!!

Most airports I know price it by the load I know we do and yes it really sucks when you just buy a load and then the price drops then the guy down the road buys a load 2 days later.and is killing your price its like what do you do then.All the airports in my immidiate are all buy from the same supplier so usually we are all pretty close.I will drop my price a little to stay in the market if i have to or atleast to try to get rid of some of that fuel.But then again its nice when you just bought a load then the price goes up.I usually start checking the price well in advance of when i think i will need a load trying to see if i can hit it just right some times it works sometimes it sometimes not.with the way the price is falling here lately its hard not to buy a load then just watch the price go down even more.
And your right you dont make a ton of money off of your fuel but you have to make some.Then you have to factor in where you are located what the owners of the airport are asking for flowage fees hangar rent all the other cost of operation. we are at 3.65 a gallon today.and in arizona the price ranges from 3.30 - 6.00 that is a big range.we are along way from any supplier so our freight is alot more than some other places.it is just a funny biz when you are selling fuel when the price changes so much from day to day.

But also if the price goes up from what i paid for whats in the tank i dont raise my prices.I am still making the money i was expecting to make and still getting sales and maybe a few more.but that is why you see a drastic change in price from one week to the next they got a load of fuel so good or bad the price is probably going to make a big jump up or down no more often than the little airports buy fuel.

here at Bishop, the FBO is run by the county and the fuel is priced, by regulation, at a set rate over cost. So the price does go up and down as the wholesale cost varies. The price changes when a new load is purchased by the county. In general, my observation over time is that av gas has become a better deal in comparison to car gas, as the increases have been smaller on a percentage basis.

Patrol Guy

Because I was in a jam a couple weeks ago, I had to buy gas at Mansfield, Ohio (MFD). I didn't ask the price until I went to pay. $405 to fill a scout, or $6.13/ gallon. Holly molely, don't stop there!!

Not so bad @ $6.13/gal, try KJAC @ $6.50/gal.

http://www.100ll.com/showfbo.php?HashID ... 4f78717718

I work at hillsboro and last time I checked the fuel was 3.95 a gallon...
Seth

The cost of fuel varies heavily between different parts of the country. The Florida area has the best fuel prices right now, and for some reason it hasn't dropped nearly as fast as auto gas here in Ohio. I dropped my avgas price almost $1/gal overnight (currently $4.59) as a new load came in, and most of my competitors are still sitting in the mid $5 range. A few have started down, but I am still just about the cheapest around. I never buy full loads of fuel. It may cost me a little more per gallon, but right now it has saved my ass big time!

The one problem with Avgas is that so little is produced, it is not in continuous production at refineries. The fuel sitting in the tanks at the depots may be from expensive oil, and the newer, cheaper oil has not been used yet. Mogas has dropped about $2.50/gal in the past few months around here, but Avgas wholesale has only dropped a shade over $1. Every Tuesday it drops a little more, so hopefully I will be able to drop my price again this week (more fuel on the way!).

Right now wholesale 100LL is running about $1.25 over premium mogas, and $1/gal profits at small airports (at least folks like me trying to keep GA affordable) is extremely rare. If I get half that, I am doing good.

Bigdawg, do you own an FBO?

Try 3.25 @ Big Bear City a/p as of Saturday

Prices down to $3.25 in the Midwest - KBUU, and seems to be dropping fast.