What is wrong with this picture?
- Regular unleaded gasoline (HU) futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 1 pm CDT – $2.1950/gallon
- Reformulated unleaded gasoline (RBOB) futures for June delivery on NYMEX as of 1 pm CDT (not quite the same blend as is required in southeast Wisconsin, but it is more plentiful than the special Milwaukee/Chicago blend) – $2.4450/gallon
- Ethanol futures for June delivery on the Chicago Board of Trade as of 1 pm CDT – $2.810/gallon (it is important to note that ethanol, where it is required, is added at the terminal and is not part of either of the blends of gasoline traded on NYMEX)
- Average pump price of regular unleaded gas in Madison (no reformulated or ethanol requirement) from MadisonGasPrices.com as of 1:30 pm CDT – $2.891/gallon
- Average pump price of regular unleaded gas in Milwaukee (both reformulated and 10% ethanol requirements) from MilwaukeeGasPrices.com as of 1:30 pm CDT – $2.910/gallon
A couple of hints for you who have had a public-school “education”:
- The trading-price premium for reformulated gasoline over regular gasoline – $0.2500/gallon
- The effective trading-price premium for ethanol-laced reformulated gasoline mandated in southeast Wisconsin ($2.4896/gallon at 90% RBOB, 10% ethanol) over non-ethanol-laced regular gas available elsewhere in the state – $0.2946/gallon (side note for those stuck on corn-a-hole; mandating 10% ethanol on regular gas would add $0.0696/gallon to its effective trading price, making that $2.2565/gallon)
- The pump-price premium for the ethanol-laced reformulated gasoline sold in Milwaukee over (mostly) non-ethanol-laced regular gasoline sold in Madison – $0.019/gallon
That might be something you want to ask Gov. Jim Doyle about. Back in 2000, when he was Attorney General, his repsonse to a similar inflation of reformulated gasoline prices was to threaten to sue any member of Big Oil that didn’t spread the pain across the entire state. You might also want to ask current AG Peg Lautenschlager about this. It sure looks like she’s continuing the Doyle policies.
Revisions/extensions (5:30 pm 5/12) – If Tommy Thompson jumps into the governor’s race, you might want to ask Mr. “Stick it to ’em” about this too. While Thompson did try (and fail) to get southeast Wisconsin out of the RFG mandate while he was still in Madison, he didn’t exactly try to dissuade Craps from his threats to persecute Big Oil if they didn’t spread the pain.
Madison gasoline prices have CONSISTENTLY been under Milwaukee’s by 5 to 10 cents over the last five years.
When we’re going to MadiStan, we usually fill up there precisely for this reason.
The thing is, Madistan’s prices should be undercutting Milwaukee’s prices by much more than 5-10 cents. That 20-and-over cent trade differential has been there since at least January.
Carnival of the Badger – Blog Warming Edition…
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Assuming perfectly equal distribution costs, competition levels and local taxes…
Go to Chicago and check the prices. In the suburbs the prices are generally $0.10 – $0.15 less than in the city proper. Even in non-Chicago areas of Cook County the price is less than in the city. Cook county and the city both have higher gas taxes.
Unlike Illinois, where both local gas taxes and local (and state) sales taxes are assessed on gasoline, there is no local taxation variable in Wisconsin (at least that I’m aware of).
The reason I chose Madison to compare to Milwaukee is that as the 2nd-largest city in the state, the distribution costs and competition levels would be the closest (not to mention that the operator of the web sites I used to compare gas prices have a handy average for both areas).