🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:22:44 -0400, Daedalus <jade@my-deja.com > wrote:

>Nice rant, Alexa!

Station owner snubs Lukoil 

By SUE ROBINSON
Courier-Post Staff 
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050917/
NEWS01/509170360/1006

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.

COLLINGSWOOD
Last week, Collingswood service station owner Balkar Saini tried negotiating
with his distributor, Lukoil, and its subsidiary Getty Petroleum for a lower
gas price. 

Though crude oil prices had dropped, his contracted price wasn't falling as
fast, and he was forced to tick his pump price up and up. Saini watched as
cars bypassed his station in favor of competitors. 

"I don't want to go bankrupt with this company, but this is where I am
heading," he said on Friday. A native of India who owns 14 service stations
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Saini estimated he was losing $5,000 to
$7,000 a month. 

By Tuesday, he had had enough. 

He cloaked the Lukoil signs, shut out Lukoil gas and bought gas on the
wholesale market. He also put a call into fellow retailers around the state.
By mid-morning Friday, a dozen had shown up with signs. 

"We just want people to know that this is not an isolated case," said Craig
Copeland, a station owner from Morris County who came down to support Saini.

But at the subsidiary company's headquarters in New York, a Getty vice
president, Sem Logovinsky, argued that this was precisely that: A case of a
disgruntled retailer in the middle of a specific contract dispute. "This is
one particular guy," he said. 

But what about the rest of the station owners? Copeland and other retailers
are suing Getty for release from their contract in federal court. 


"Every dealer is never satisfied with the price," Logovinsky said. "(Gas) is
a commodity and the price is what it is." 

Crude oil prices are finally falling after huge spikes in the wake of the
Hurricane Katrina supply disruption and skittish futures market. But Jersey
gas prices continue to be 20 percent higher than before Katrina. 

Trenton lawmakers held hearings this week on why: They are blaming retailers
and others; the retailers are blaming their oil companies -- like Lukoil,
which is in the middle of rebranding 800 Mobils whose contracts it took over
in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

Copeland said overcharging by the distributor translates into higher prices
at the pump for everyone, sometimes as much as 20 cents higher. 

Ranjit Dhaliwal, a station owner in Pleasantville, figured he is losing
about $4,000 or $5,000 a month on the difference in Lukoil's charge and what
he could get elsewhere. He had high hopes that Friday's demonstration might
sway the company. 

"I am thinking that maybe Lukoil will listen to us and get us a good price
that I need to survive," he said. 

Saini stood under his draped Lukoil sign. A price for his new no-brand
regular gasoline read $2.85 a gallon. With the wholesale price of gas at
$2.55 on Wednesday compared to the Lukoil charge of $2.94, Saini is able to
make enough to pay his overhead and have enough for a 25-cent-per-gallon
profit margin. 

Yet, Saini is most likely violating his contract with Lukoil by snubbing the
distributor to buy gas. Logovinsky maintained that Getty has done nothing
wrong or illegal. 

"We are selling as competitively as everyone else in the area," Logovinsky
said.