How much does it cost to transport a gallon of fuel to a retail gas station?

You've gotten a ball park rate. No ones going to give you their exclusive rate. There are lots of other variables. My fuel s/c could be 37%, where the competitor is at 34%. But, I could give a 4% discount if you allow me to manage your 50+ stores and allow me to pull loads at will.

as is anything, quoting rates takes experience. You can screw yourself in a hurry or out price yourself in a blink of an eye. Throw a price, if you are a poker player you will know if you're in the ball park

 

We pulled fuel for a major chain ( STOP AND GO ) for .09 cpg. We were only the carrier working for the SNG marketing dept. Not the only carrier but only the carrier so we were not exposed to other charges / fees.

We loaded 8800 all the time and driver pay was cheap. Grossed about $750 week for 70 hrs....... yessir, I was steppin in high cottton.

JMO

 

Just remember you're getting quotes from common carriers buying fuel from the rack. The other companies, like a major figure the cost much differently. First you've got to know what a major is. That's a company that owns the crude, refines the product, transport it to the station and some times sells the end product. Those companies have two types of costs, cost per mile and dollars per hour. The dollars per hours are the drivers wages, insurance for the driver, and all cost it takes to make the truck go down the road. The cost per mile includes all the cost it takes to own the truck. So there are numerous factors involved to figure how much it cost a company to haul a gallon of gasoline. I was at a major and did most of all the local work. They told us the cut off line was 160 miles and any load further than that a common carrier would be cheaper. So there's a department in every company that knows exactly how much it cost for every mile. But just like the blend rates for gasoline you'll never find out. They protect those figures because it's business and very cut-throat.

 

I agree, in part. We new exactly what our trucks were generating per hour. We also got special discounts at the rack because of our size and relationship to the sellers. Multi-Million dollar contracts were just a couple of paragraphs long. As with all private carriers of refined product, you will never know exactly what their true costs are. DTN and their low-rack pricing (which is the basis of most unbranded pricing in a market) is only part of the equation.

 

Here's you a range. Some of the fuel rates vary from $4.00 to $8.00. This is loaded mile without fuel s/c. This is an avg with stops, terminals, etc.

there are just way too many variables to quote an exact rate each time (unless contract).

 

Those mileages are per shift.

 

We sold our trucks every 5 years and our trailers every 10. They would have about 250,000 hard city miles on them. But even with the hard miles we got top dollar on our resale. I saw a KW with a 5000 gallon tank mounted and a drop axle go for $55,000. That cost also goes back into delivery cost. Like I've said before buying gasoline at the rack is your best bet for finding a ball park figure. With us we sold to them so there was so many other variables involved. We don't want to undercut ourselves!

 

I think I understand where your questioning is going, but as stated in other responses, there are other factors that go into pricing. As an example, low-rack may be $3.00/gal for a particular market. Our margin for in town may be $.07/gal all inclusive. What is not public is that we may have purchased 10,000 bbls (420,0000 gal) that week and our cost for that buy was $ 2.90. We may be blending our own bio which saves us another .03/gal. So we really have a gross margin of .25/gal. That is how difficult it is to give an exact delivered gross margin in a discussion here.