Discussions

If transport costs are a factor, then why is Co-op fuel exactly the same price in Minnedosa and Brandon??  
It goes up in Brandon and then Minnedosa gets a call to put it up here.  
Call me clueless......

Co-op is 69.9 according to Gasbuddy

Opportunities Abound said "    don brown said "Yup, only cents a litre, maybe not something to get upset about, but take five cents a litre on all the litres that are sold in Brandon or surrounding area, and realize that there was a large amount of money removed from the local economy. So the next question might be so what. If you look at small communities surrounding larger urban centres people usually pay slightly higher prices, and that keeps the businesses going in those communities, if the difference is within reason people don't care, if the spread gets to great on an assortment of goods, people do shop elsewhere.     Guess I'm old school, a few cents a litre does make a difference in my mind. " I buy my fuel from Co-op, It's local and supports our local economy. Non-issue in my mind. "

CO OP is as local as your local Walmart....has amazed me for years how people have bought into their white lie...and gas cost more in Brandon for the same reason everything else does, because they can.

I guess the reason people get so upset has to do with the idea that they are paying more than they should, and many of the excuses that are used just don't stand up to critical scrutiny.  
Say that you heard that steak was selling for $5 a lb in Brandon, so you head off to the store to buy some, you go into the store and meet a friend and they tell you that the just bought some steak for $5 a lb. Encouraged by the idea of saving a few bucks, you go to the meat counter and ask for some steaks, you ask the price of the steaks, and the butcher replies $8.99 a lb. Now I'm not sure about anyone else, but I would question why my steak is costing me $8.99. Let's say that you decide not to buy at that store and go to a different store because everyone is still talking about the $5 steak, and once again your steak costs are $8.99. Once again I can't speak for everyone else but that would tick me just a bit.  
 
When it comes to the actual dollar value that a person is out maybe that's not really important, at times some things come down to the principal of it.  
 
I'm not sure if it's really a situation that they can do it to us, as more of a situation that we let them do it to us.  
 
Edited by don brown, 2016-02-13 23:38:55

You think Coop is as local as Walmart? Wow! To say that a company that returns its savings (read profits) to local members in the form of cash so they can spend as they see fit, is the same as Walmart whose profits go to one family who are multi billionaires is absurd. When is the last time you heard of Walmart paying above average wages? Coop pays well above what Walmart pays from what I have heard. Is Walmart's head office in Minnedosa, paying local people to balance the books and run the business? Does Walmart donate thousands of dollars of its own money to community organizations through donations of cash or goods? Or do they donate by asking for YOUR money at the till and handing over, to make themselves look good? Pretty sure that Walmart didn't donate a sizeable sum to they YMCA or the Ashley Neufeld ball complex.  
Sure there is Federated Coop who supplies Heritage Coop and other local Coops with goods (gas, groceries and hardware) but Federated Coop is also a community based company (Saskatoon) who also sends its profits back to its members (Heritage, Pembina, Portage etc), so that it can spend that money locally as well. To say that they are both the same as far as being local is comparing apples to corn. It's not even close. The only similarity is that they are both retailers. It appears that you need to reacquaint yourself with Coop if you think they are the same as Walmart... and by that I mean look deeper than the fact that they are a retailer.  

A good Sunday morning discussion .

Still wishing we had a Costco... Cheap fuel and propane

90% of my driving is local, but for the other 10% I fill with cheaper out of town gas and make sure the tanks are full before heading back to Brandon. Very seldom have to ever buy gas here. It's not a huge difference in the end for me, but why would I willingly pay more? Gas is gas.

Rational and respectful debate only folks. Few posters are pushing that line and will not be welcome to participate if they continue to push the thread in that direction.

Bought gas at Costco last night for 63.4

Stations in Winnipeg were raising their prices from 67.4 to 79.9 this afternoon. Better fill up.

11 am price is at 81.9. Barrel of oil up a $1 and gas up 14cents a litre or about 63 cents a gallon. So a a 45 gallon barrel has 45 gallons of gas go up in price roughly $28.  
 
Finally makes sense to me that gas stations can do what they want. As it doesn't seem to have any correlation with the price of oil. But hey I filled my little SUV up last night at 67.9 and save about $7 on 45 litres.  
 
Edited by Reggie 2, 2016-02-18 11:24:54

The rack price of gas at Shell in Wpg has jumped 10 cents on the last ten days or so. My prediction is that most stations will be near 80 cents by the end of the day.  

I was out yesterday and the price of gas was 69.9 cents a liter, what are you guys complaining about?  

Grab it at 69.9 while you can folks! Shell on 18th has starting the jump! 81.9 there

Therese said "I was out yesterday and the price of gas was 69.9 cents a liter, what are you guys complaining about?   "

It went up to 80 cents in Winnipeg yesterday. 80 cents in wpg = 83-86 cents in Brandon.

Coop on Richmond just went up to 81.9 while I was in line, looks like their neighbour Esso won my business today...I'm sure they'll all be up soon!

If Gadbuddy's to be believed, still a few holdouts at 69.9 but looks like 81.9 will be the new norm. If you look at it in terms of percentage, thats 17%!  

CR said "Coop on Richmond just went up to 81.9 while I was in line, looks like their neighbour Esso won my business today...I'm sure they'll all be up soon! "

fuel in their tanks instantly became more expensive!

That's what happens when gas goes up $0.11 all at once and a couple station straggle behind.

While I don't like to see the price of gas go up either, I always find it rather odd that the oil companies seem to be the only businesses that a large percentage of the public seem to feel should have to justify increasing the price of their product. I mean, when was the last time you saw a thread on here or anywhere else for that matter, about a phone company, internet provider or a bank, where people were demanding an explanation of why the prices of those services went up? You just don't see threads like that, or if you do, they are very few and far between.  
 
When I look at the cost of gasoline over the last five years or so, I see that it is one of the few products that has actually come down in price. A few years back we were paying $1.35 per litre. For the past week or so, we have been paying 69.9 cents. That works out to a decrease of about 45 percent in price. What else has gone down in price 45 percent over the past five years?  
 
My phone bill keeps increasing, without explanation, every year and the price of my internet has increased approximately 55 percent over the past five years! The banks keep increasing their service charges on a regular basis. The phone companies, internet providers and the major banks are all corporations, just like the "evil" oil companies, so, it's all about profits with them too, yet they seem to "get a pass" when they raise their prices. Why?  
 
Manitoba Hydro keeps increasing the cost of the electricity they provide, no doubt to help fund the stupid Bipole 3 debacle. Unlike gasoline, which actually goes down in price every year during the "slow" winter driving season, there are no seasonal rates offered for the electricity we all need in order to live our everyday lives, but Manitoba Hydro is government run, which may be why we seem so willing to look the other way when they increase electricity rates.  
 
So, yeah, I always find it rather strange that so many people only complain and/or demand to know why, whenever the oil companies raise the price of gas, yet say little, if anything, when the cost of all those others goes up.  
 
It means more money out of your wallet no matter who is taking it.

Triplethreat said "While I don't like to see the price of gas go up either, I always find it rather odd that the oil companies seem to be the only businesses that a large percentage of the public seem to feel should have to justify increasing the price of their product. I mean, when was the last time you saw a thread on here or anywhere else for that matter, about a phone company, internet provider or a bank, where people were demanding an explanation of why the prices of those services went up? You just don't see threads like that, or if you do, they are very few and far between.     When I look at the cost of gasoline over the last five years or so, I see that it is one of the few products that has actually come down in price. A few years back we were paying $1.35 per litre. For the past week or so, we have been paying 69.9 cents. That works out to a decrease of about 45 percent in price. What else has gone down in price 45 percent over the past five years?     My phone bill keeps increasing, without explanation, every year and the price of my internet has increased approximately 55 percent over the past five years! The banks keep increasing their service charges on a regular basis. The phone companies, internet providers and the major banks are all corporations, just like the "evil" oil companies, so, it's all about profits with them too, yet they seem to "get a pass" when they raise their prices. Why?     Manitoba Hydro keeps increasing the cost of the electricity they provide, no doubt to help fund the stupid Bipole 3 debacle. Unlike gasoline, which actually goes down in price every year during the "slow" winter driving season, there are no seasonal rates offered for the electricity we all need in order to live our everyday lives, but Manitoba Hydro is government run, which may be why we seem so willing to look the other way when they increase electricity rates.     So, yeah, I always find it rather strange that so many people only complain and/or demand to know why, whenever the oil companies raise the price of gas, yet say little, if anything, when the cost of all those others goes up.     It means more money out of your wallet no matter who is taking it. "

What fuels this constant debate, is the fact that most of the surrounding small towns and Winnipeg is a pretty constantly almost 10 cents a litre cheaper than Brandon this has been happening for years, 25 years ago or so, it was a never ending topic on Q country Talk Back to the point Bill turner would ask for no more calls about gas prices.

I stopped paying attention to gas prices ages ago. What does it really matter anyway? I need gas, I get gas. Simple as that. If gas stations did in fact play the game "Who has the cheapest fuel?" maybe I would pay attention more. I was at Safeway last evening and I guess it must have been one of the holdouts at 69.9 because it was pretty crazy in there. Regardless, if gas is 69.9 or 139.9 we are all going to pay so it really doesn't matter. Maybe it's just a release to complain on a public forum about prices? I'm not really sure what the fuss is all about.

the main reason I feel people get upset about gas me included is because there is no justification for such price fluctuations. When the price of fuel is high, gas stations/companies claim that it's due to trading price of oil on the stock market. Yet when the price of oil drops we don't see that reflection at the pumps and we are then told that it is due to the fact that gas and oil are two different commodities trading in the stock market and we can't compare the two. As for the above post saying that we currently are seeing about a 45% decrease in fuel @ the pumps since the price was 1.39 since then the price of oil has dropped 80% so....  
 
Edited by Muppet, 2016-02-19 09:40:51

Triplethreat said "While I don't like to see the price of gas go up either, I always find it rather odd that the oil companies seem to be the only businesses that a large percentage of the public seem to feel should have to justify increasing the price of their product. I mean, when was the last time you saw a thread on here or anywhere else for that matter, about a phone company, internet provider or a bank, where people were demanding an explanation of why the prices of those services went up? You just don't see threads like that, or if you do, they are very few and far between.     When I look at the cost of gasoline over the last five years or so, I see that it is one of the few products that has actually come down in price. A few years back we were paying $1.35 per litre. For the past week or so, we have been paying 69.9 cents. That works out to a decrease of about 45 percent in price. What else has gone down in price 45 percent over the past five years?     My phone bill keeps increasing, without explanation, every year and the price of my internet has increased approximately 55 percent over the past five years! The banks keep increasing their service charges on a regular basis. The phone companies, internet providers and the major banks are all corporations, just like the "evil" oil companies, so, it's all about profits with them too, yet they seem to "get a pass" when they raise their prices. Why?     Manitoba Hydro keeps increasing the cost of the electricity they provide, no doubt to help fund the stupid Bipole 3 debacle. Unlike gasoline, which actually goes down in price every year during the "slow" winter driving season, there are no seasonal rates offered for the electricity we all need in order to live our everyday lives, but Manitoba Hydro is government run, which may be why we seem so willing to look the other way when they increase electricity rates.     So, yeah, I always find it rather strange that so many people only complain and/or demand to know why, whenever the oil companies raise the price of gas, yet say little, if anything, when the cost of all those others goes up.     It means more money out of your wallet no matter who is taking it. "

I guess I have to explain it to you then. The price of oil is by far the biggest contributing factor to the price of gas. Oil has dropped by 60 or 70%. Have the input costs for your internet, hydro, or telephone dropped? Thats why those prices have gone up while gas hasn't. And when gas goes up 50-60 per gallon over night with little change in input costs, then yeah, people are going to be unhappy and question it.

Oil down almost 5% today. How long for it to filter through the system before we get some of our 17% back?

When the price of gas at the pumps in Winnipeg drops, it takes a week or two for the price to drop in Brandon. We are told that "it is because they have to use up the old, higher priced inventory before they can lower their price."  
 
When the price of gas at the pumps in Wpg rises, it rises in Bdn the next day. What happened to using up the lower priced inventory first?  
 
I was talking to a trucker friend. We estimated that the cost to truck fuel to Bdn from Wpg would be about 3 - 4 cents a litre. So why is the price in Bdn usually 7 or more cents a litre higher than Wpg? Isn't the price of gas at Austin the same as it is in Wpg (been a while since I've been to Wpg so not sure), yet Bdn is considerably more, although we aren't that much further down the highway.  
 
Gouging, plain and simple.

Trevor B said "    CR said "Coop on Richmond just went up to 81.9 while I was in line, looks like their neighbour Esso won my business today...I'm sure they'll all be up soon! " fuel in their tanks instantly became more expensive! "

You might say it instantly became more profitable.

Enbridge has posted a 4th quarter profit of nearly 400 million dollars. Wonder how that happens when "they" want us to believe the oil industry is in peril.

I look at it as seperate from the oil industry, sometimes the transportation of a commodity has very little to do with the value of the commodity. An example could be grain, the price of grain does rise and fall and yet transportation cost usually don't decline unless it is competition with in the transportation industry itself. If one looks at the transportation of oil in the last year it has gone on with very little disruption, although finding a place to store oil is now becoming a bit of a problem, this could affect the bottom line of Enbridge as well as rail companies.