Gas prices see steep drop in Labrador as retail suppliers struggle with constant change
Gasoline prices are dropping drastically in parts of Labrador once again.
In its weekly scheduled price adjustment, the Public Utilities Board "determined that the temporary increase in the retail portion of the total allowed mark-up for gasoline motor fuel."
The areas affected are the Straits to Red Bay, the south, the coastal south, central and the coastal north. Gas prices will decrease 19.7 cents, the same decrease seen on Friday.
The rest of the province will see a 0.7 cents per litre decrease in gasoline.
Meanwhile, diesel prices for the entire province dropped 2.6 cents per litre on Thursday.
Furnace oil increased 0.85 cents per litre.
Stove oil increased 2.77 cents per litre on the island and decreased 3.87 cents per litre in Labrador West and Churchill Falls.
Propane decreased in price by 2.3 cents per litre.
Retail suppliers coping with price swings
Customers aren't the only ones feeling the weight of the constantly changing fuel prices.
Retail suppliers also say it's affecting their bottom line.
Derek Skinner and David Baird own Reliable Fuels in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's. They say they just don't know what the market is going to do.
"It can go up or down Wednesday. It can go up or down Thursday. It can go up or down Friday. They change all the time," Skinner told CBC News.
"Our price, that we buy for, changes daily. For the customer, it used to be once a week but we've been seeing here lately, since oil has been up and down, it can change three or four times a week."
The daily price change means his company sells fuel at a loss some days.
Last month, said Skinner, the company simply couldn't sell diesel one day because it would have meant taking a loss for the entire day. The loss was about 38 cents per litre.
Baird said customers are also filling up more often but are buying less product because of the constant price changes, meaning his company is making more deliveries of furnace oil to the same houses and that's driving up operating costs.
"It's very difficult. You can't predict what's happening the next day. Sometimes you try to predict and you buy the day before … hoping in the next day the price goes up slightly," he said.
"Daily price changes are the biggest obstacles in our business right now that we're fighting against. It's a roll of the dice."
