Drivers winning this gas war
Less pain at the pump as battling outlets cut prices
An old-fashioned gasoline price war has broken out on Wayside Drive, south of downtown Houston, adding good news to motorists already enjoying the lowest gas prices of the year and the cheapest Fourth-of-July fill-ups in more than a decade.
This corporate tussle, just one of many in Houston, pits an Exxon gas station against a Murphy Express. The two stations, off Interstate 45, have been fighting for customers for months. Their giant gasprice signs leer across the street at each other, touting unleaded at $1.87 per gallon this week, about 17 cents below the area’s average.
Houstonians are driving in from near and far. “Oh, I tell everybody,” said Caroline Sherman, 54, from Denver Harbor, a historic neighborhood on Houston’s east side. “I mean, the gas is cheap! I’m big on a good deal.”
Average gas prices in Houston dropped by more than 5 cents last week, to $2.04 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.com, a web-
site that tracks gas prices. At the same time, the national average tumbled almost 3 cents to $2.25 per gallon. And prices continue to fall.
“It’s amazing,” Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, said earlier in the week. “We’re staring at some of the cheapest prices of the year as the holiday comes into view.”
By Thursday, gas in Houston was more than 6 cents per gallon lower than the same day one year ago and 15 cents less than a month ago. The national average stands almost 6 cents per gallon lower than last year and more than 16 cents less than a month ago.
In Houston, falling gasoline prices are not necessarily good news. They’re a sign of low crude oil prices, declining profits and fewer jobs at the energy companies that drive the local economy. The region has begun to rebound from the last oil bust, but the plunge in prices that pushed crude into a bear market — 20 percent below its February peak of $54 a barrel — has raised concerns that the recovery will stall.
“It’s a double edged sword,” said Daniel Armbruster, spokesman for the state branch of the automobile club AAA. “There are people whose jobs rely on that market to stay strong.”
Gas prices normally rise in the summer, as the industry prepares for summer holidays, road trips and a surge in demand. But falling crude prices, slipping consumption and abundant stockpiles of both oil and gasoline have broken the seasonal pattern. Nationally, the average price of gasoline is projected to be higher on July 4 than it was on Jan. 1 for the first time since GasBuddy began tracking prices 17 years ago.
Over the past four weeks, consumption of all petroleum products was down by nearly 3 percent compared to the same period a year ago, the U.S. Energy Department reported. Gasoline consumption slipped more than 2 percent.
It’s not that U.S. drivers are necessarily driving less, analysts say. Their cars and trucks — even big Ford F150s — are significantly more fuel-efficient. A recent paper by Rice University energy fellow Gabriel Collins found that vehicle miles have increased almost 8 percent, but gasoline demand has gone up less than 4 percent over the past five years.
“Better engine technology likely underpins much of the rising gasoline consumption efficiency on U.S. roads,” Collins wrote, “and the big, powerful pickups and SUVs cherished by many American drivers are at the center of the action.”
The action on Wayside Drive began about nine months ago when Murphy Express, an Arkansas chain with a reputation for aggressively cutting prices, showed up across the street from the Exxon, owned by Timewise Food Stores. When competitors try to elbow in, said Timewise partner Keith Van Marter, gas stations will keep dropping prices.
Timewise and its parent, Houston’s Landmark Industries, own more than 220 gas stations and convenience stores across Texas. Van Marter said the company has fought for customers for 30 years, and will keep doing it. “Once you lose your customer base, you lose it, and it’s hard to get that customer back,” he said.
Murphy Express did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Customers, meanwhile, are making the most of the price war. Steve Esparza, 46, said he lives nearby and visits the Exxon twice a week to fill up. Myron Tolliver, 42, from the northwest Houston, said he, too, stops by the Exxon almost every day. “It’s always been the low gas,” he said.
James Bowers, 36, from Braeswood, is a salesman and drives for a living. He started coming to the Murphy when it opened. “I knew it was going to be cheaper than anywhere else,” he said Wednesday. So did others. By noon that day, under gray skies and a steady rain, both stations were full, not a free pump in sight.