Why is gas sold in tenths of a cent

No One Has an Advantage Overall, the average fuel retailer today makes about 10 cents per gallon selling gas. That 0. Consumers, meanwhile, get exactly what they pay for at the pump, and the dispensers perform some simple rounding. If the final price ends with a fraction of a cent below 0. If it is 0. This rounding process at the fuel dispenser is fairly common in retail. For example, at a deli, a consumer may get 0. The practice is also in place at all retail establishments that factor in sales taxes.

If a local restaurant must include a 7. For reliable coverage on all things related to the fuels industry—from refinery supply to terminal and bulk plant storage to transportation via pipeline, barge, rail and truck, to wholesale distribution and retail marketing—visit Fuels Market News website, weekly e-newsletters and print magazine.

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Submit your speaker proposal or simply add your name to our speaker database. Webinars Engage in prerecorded and live learning experiences without committing your entire day to a program. Marketplace reports those extra penny fragments add up to half a billion dollars per year. An intersection may have several gas stations, but not all of them are competitors.

Typically, station owners say , they're concerned only with other stations on the same side of the road. Many consumers will drive longer to find a cheaper station on the same side of the street, but generally won't cut across heavy traffic just to save a few cents a gallon, particularly if there's a median. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots.

Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Back at the Shell station, Glass also said he thinks the government should focus of bigger energy problems. News Updated. By Tom Doggett 5 Min Read.

Reporting by Tom Doggett. Back when he owned his station, Ward would drive around scoping out his competition every day. But he only cared about one side of the road. Ward says a traffic median might as well be an international border. You could be across the street from another gas station, but not be a direct competitor with them. But for stations on the same side?

A carefully picked price can make all the difference to customers. They would drive 15 miles to save two cents a gallon. Why is diesel fuel so much more expensive than gasoline? It has cut down harmful emissions from diesel fuel by 90 percent, but Jacobsen says it has had some unintended consequences. It used to be less refined. It was like a byproduct of gasoline.

It produces a lot more energy than gas. So, it used to be you could make diesel, or you could make gas and you could tweak it at the refinery. And you could make a little more of this or a little less of that. Now it has to be a specially designed product that they refine specifically for the use of diesel buyers. So when we produced this new diesel fuel we had a much bigger market for it.

In fact, U.