Photo by Vince Fedoroff
POPULAR DESTINATION - The Petro-Canada station on FourthAvenue was a busy place Tuesday as bargain-hungry motorists rolled in to take advantage of gasoline selling as low as 84.9 cents per litre. Some customers brought jerry cans to fuel up ATVs, lawn mowers and hunting equipment, or to store the cheaper gas until use in a vehicle.
Fourth Avenue was jammed with idling vehicles Tuesday as drivers waited to take advantage of low gas prices at two local fuel stations.
Fourth Avenue was jammed with idling vehicles Tuesday as drivers waited to take advantage of low gas prices at two local fuel stations.
While every other station in town was selling gas at around $1 a litre, Tag's and Petro-Canada were battling it out with prices as low as 84.9 cents a litre.
Petro-Canada manager Parmesh Billay said today the initial decision to drop the price came from head office at opening time Tuesday.
Tag's - Petro-Canada's closest competitor - quickly followed suit, and both stations had vehicles lined up at the pumps throughout the day and early evening.
"It's good for everybody," Billay said with a laugh.
He said the station was busiest at midday, but there were more customers than usual until closing time at 11 p.m.
At opening this morning, the price was back up to 100.9/L at both stations. The crown of cheapest fill-up returns to the Riverdale and Porter Creek Super As, where a litre is going for 99.9 cents.
A spokeswoman for Suncor, Petro-Canada's parent station, said prices are set based on three factors: the price of crude oil, the wholesale price of fuel and local market forces.
There was a drop in crude prices yesterday, she noted, but said the 15-cent saving at the pump was more likely attributable to local competition.
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Comments (2)
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francias pillman on Sep 3, 2009 at 9:06 am
Its funny how quickly people forgot how much these oil companies rip us off on a daily bias. Remember when gas was $1.50 up here? All set up thefts to steal our hard earned money. But I'm glad people forgive and forget when they wait an hour in line to save 2 bucks. There's no shortage, there's no peak oil. But hey keep believing anything CNN tells you.
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Joel on Sep 3, 2009 at 12:45 am
Finally there is some real competition going on in Whitehorse and it looks nice every once in a while. For years Whitehorse has had almost everyone at the same price based on Superstore's pricing.
I am glad now that PetroCan is owned by the parent company they are willing to shake things up to try to get more customers in their doors. Both Sidhu and PetroCan have the money to be able to fight this...