Consumerist

The station I work at, my bosses make $0.0275 (two and 3/4 cents) per litre Canadian. With our price at $1.089/litre, he makes around 2.5% on gas sales.

No the money is in selling smokes, pop and junk food. What we need is a station that caters only to three things, gas, booze and cigarettes.

@kootenayredneck: In fact, the cost of selling gas for pennies of profit per gallon is outrageous - the cost of maintaining the tanks and pumps and licenses and so forth. In an ideal world, I bet most gas station owners would rather dump gas altogether and just sell cigarettes, junk food, and booze.

and the government makes an average of $.45 a gallon in taxes

Yet oil companies report record earnings that get higher and higher every year.

@clarient:
because more and more people are driving more and more each year. oil companies make about 10 cents a gallon in profit, and you want oil companies to do well because most retirement plans invest heavily in them.

...don't forget lotto tickets...

They must have bad deals worked out. My buddy gets 8 cents per gallon at his gas station.

@humphrmi: Er...wouldn't the profit come after you pay for all those other things? Profit, at least to me, means how much you actually make.

I imagine they turn over a couple hundred a day in gas receipts alone. Not super lucrative, but that's not including the "convenience" store aspect of it all.

not to mention the fact that a lot of them have to foot the bill for whatever the insane gas cost is at the time, the week before they need it... and then take the hit in cost if the have to lower them to remain competitive.

This explains why the gas station around the corner has changed ownership about 10 times in the past 3 years.

@kootenayredneck: And we wonder why we have health problems.

@PinnyCohen: Before or after factoring in costs like rent and taxes?

@Squeezer99: Not really considering they're largely responsible for promoting screwing up the environment.

@Buran: what's screwed up about the environment?

It's sad that the owners aren't making much.
Not to mention:
-Oil companies have multi year contracts - they aren't actually paying the market price - some are paying market price 5 years ago
-Biggest producer - Saudi Arabia - Has how many palaces for Princes? thousands - all paid with your oil money
-Record profits for our oligopoly oil companies how many times recently?

@SQUEEZER99: It's too cold apparently

@Squeezer99: I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that one, although in truth I do not know the details. The price of gas in Hungary has hardly changed one bit in the past 7-8 years, but here in the states it's more than tripled. The dollar is weak right now, but not THAT weak. No, the oil companies have decided to raise prices in America, and they're getting away with it, because, do we really have a choice? I mean a REAL viable choice? And since they've raised prices they've been having record earnings CONSISTENTLY each freakin' quarter. And it's just ironic that the current prez (his family, at least) made his $$ in oil. I believe it's time for the US gov to step in and protect the little people, the people our great constitution states are as important as the 'big' people (yeah, that really flies these days, don't it?!) (ok, it doesn't outright state that, but the sentiments are there - "all men are created equal")

As for gas station profit, please explain to me then how IN THE SAME TOWN there can be discrepancies as great as 30-40 cents per gallon in price??? Yeah, their profit may be 'low' but then again we pump a freakin' lot of gas! Do they make more from cigs/booze? Perhaps, but don't tell me they're not profiting from gas sales. Unless you can explain the price differences to me I'm just not buying that.

@banmojo: do a google search. yes the oil companies make about $.10 a gallon of gas sold. the varation in local prices comes from spot pricing and competition. the vast majority of the price of gas comes from the cost of crude oil and taxes.

Why are people shocked by this? Grocery stores profit less than 5 cents on every dollar sold. They just make up for it by selling billions in product. Why then is it so shocking to see the same thing in another market?

@DeeSarco: Hey, one could whine about Exxon-Mobil, or own some of it. Keep on buying that gas.

Before rent and taxes (then again, those are costs every retail store has...)