Hurricane Florence, and Stable Gasoline Prices

Gas prices here haven't risen even though we went thru and are still going thru the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. About a week and a half before storm hit, Governor Cooper declared a state of emergency, mainly to allow farmers get get crops out of the fields. This allowed them to exceed weight limits on roads, and hours of work rules. A pleasant side effect was gasoline prices were frozen, which means no price gouging before and after the storm. I bet the oil companies are happy with his decision.;)

A big concern relative to fuel costs on the East Coast relative to Florence revolved around the potential of the Colonial Pipeline (and others) not having power to transport petroleum products north to the refineries in the mid-Atlantic area. Given that fuel costs have not escalated up there, I'm guessing that the pipeline(s) continued to flow.

In mid-2015 Bent crude was less than $40. Today it is $78.80. The oil companies are plenty happy.

A big part of it is that Florence's path did not affect nearly as many refinery facilities as most hurricanes do when they hit near the Gulf.

How many gas stations are flooded? I assume they must pump all those tanks and then refill them, right? Who foots the bill for that if they cant charge a bit more temporarily to pay for that?

I don't believe your assumption that gasoline price gouging after a catastrophe is done at the "oil company" level is accurate. Price controls might help on a short term basis, but in the long run it just reduces supplies to crisis levels. I witnessed that during the great fuel shortages of the 1970's. There is no getting around the economic law of supply and demand.

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Originally Posted by Art Mann

I don't believe your assumption that gasoline price gouging after a catastrophe is done at the "oil company" level is accurate. Price controls might help on a short term basis, but in the long run it just reduces supplies to crisis levels. I witnessed that during the great fuel shortages of the 1970's. There is no getting around the economic law of supply and demand.

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During the 70's, I worked for a company that had a fleet of over ten vehicles on the road every day. Local distributor said if we could locate a tank and pump somewhere, he could keep it full. Boss found an old building that had such. Distributor tested tank and pumps for leaks, and there was none. Next day, they dropped 600O gallons ( a tanker load) of gas in the tank. For our trucks that were going out of town, we added 75 gallon aux fuel tanks. As soon as we had used a thousand gallons, he would send a truck to refill the tank. Distributor kept tank full for the duration. Never had any problem filling up personal vehicle at local gas station. The word shortage created a panic, which caused people to hoard gasoline even if they didn't need it. My dad (great depression and WWII rationing survivor) bought a 55 gallon drum and went over to next town and filled it, even though gas was in short supply.

Where I lived, there was no gas to be had at any price. I won't speculate on your odd story. If you are saying the general shortage wasn't real, I am afraid I simply don't believe you. I was there!

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Originally Posted by Art Mann

Where I lived, there was no gas to be had at any price. I won't speculate on your odd story. If you are saying the general shortage wasn't real, I am afraid I simply don't believe you. I was there!

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I was there also! Current wife of40+ years, had an uncle who ran a gas station. Even though his tanks were full, his distributor told him to limit sales to no more than 10 gallons to any customer. People would take cars that weren't being driven and go fill them up, just because they could, adding to shortages. FYI, gas prices at local stations have come down by as much as ten cents per gallon this week. even though we are still in a "state of emergency."