Hess acquisition by Speedway

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I've been a fairly loyal Hess customer for many years. In North Carolina one of our largest gasoline chains dating back to the 70's has been Wilco out of Winston-Salem. Hess and Wilco entered a partnership many years ago, and this brand (Wilco-Hess) is probably one of the most available in NC. I've always felt like Hess gasoline was a quality product and have had no performance issues. To top it off they most always were the least expensive in town and pumped large #'s of gallons due to this, so you were almost always guaranteed to get fresh gasoline.

I hope this quality/price advantage doesn't disappear with Speedway. I've bought Speedway while traveling through the Midwest with no issues, but from what I can gather in reading about Speedway, they are not generally viewed in a positive light where they operate. I hope my perception is wrong; guess time will tell.
 
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I know there was a member who had quite a few unflattering things to say about Speedway, I think he was from West Virginia. Specifically it was about how they monopolized the market by undercutting the competition by a huge margin at first and driving the others out of business, then raising their prices significantly.

Anyone remember that thread?
 
Originally Posted By: Volvohead
What about the holiday trucks?

That's what Hess is all about around these parts.


Trucks will still be available on the Hess web site.
 
Originally Posted By: sopususer
I've been a fairly loyal Hess customer for many years. In North Carolina one of our largest gasoline chains dating back to the 70's has been Wilco out of Winston-Salem. Hess and Wilco entered a partnership many years ago, and this brand (Wilco-Hess) is probably one of the most available in NC. I've always felt like Hess gasoline was a quality product and have had no performance issues. To top it off they most always were the least expensive in town and pumped large #'s of gallons due to this, so you were almost always guaranteed to get fresh gasoline.

I hope this quality/price advantage doesn't disappear with Speedway. I've bought Speedway while traveling through the Midwest with no issues, but from what I can gather in reading about Speedway, they are not generally viewed in a positive light where they operate. I hope my perception is wrong; guess time will tell.


Same here in central N.C. Hess stations are usually a bit cheaper and I've used their gas for many years.
 
Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
I know there was a member who had quite a few unflattering things to say about Speedway, I think he was from West Virginia. Specifically it was about how they monopolized the market by undercutting the competition by a huge margin at first and driving the others out of business, then raising their prices significantly.

Anyone remember that thread?


Don't remember a thread like that, but that was like Hess. I used to go there all the time as they had the lowest prices in the area, but then they started going up a few cents, but now they're not even competitive with the cheap stations anymore. Now either I go to BJ's, the grocery store station or a new low cost station is Prime. There's also those no name gas stations, they're sorta strange, once in a while they will have a really low price, then it shoots up for a week or two before coming back down again. I guess it all depends on what kind of price they get per load.
 
Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
I know there was a member who had quite a few unflattering things to say about Speedway, I think he was from West Virginia. Specifically it was about how they monopolized the market by undercutting the competition by a huge margin at first and driving the others out of business, then raising their prices significantly.

Anyone remember that thread?


Speedway is pretty dominant in this market, but a number of other branded as well as no-name stations have survived and thrived. I doubt that Speedway would sell fuel at a loss just to drive others out of the market, particularly since some of the other players are company stores of giants able to crush Speedway or at least wait it out.
Speedway does seem to keep the other stations honest and usually leads on price drops.
The fuel market is transparent enough that no one seller can jack up prices beyond reasonable margins.
Since most gas stations make most of their profits on beer, cigarettes, soft drinks and fast or junk food and most of the traffic is generated by the prices posted on the big sign facing the road, no station can afford to let its fuel prices get too far out of line.
 
I knew that they were dominant in this market, but I was shocked by the degree:

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2014/05/22/marathon-speedway-hess.html

In this article, statistics are quoted from the state of Ohio for the # of gallons sold in February of this year:

#1 Speedway 72 million gallons
#2 Pilot 34 million gallons
#3 Kroger 30 million gallons

Speedway sold more than 2x the number of gallons than the second ranked. If you add in the gallons sold by Marathon (who owns Speedway,) I'd bet that it would easily be a 3:1 advantage. Talk about dominant.
 
Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
I know there was a member who had quite a few unflattering things to say about Speedway, I think he was from West Virginia. Specifically it was about how they monopolized the market by undercutting the competition by a huge margin at first and driving the others out of business, then raising their prices significantly.

Anyone remember that thread?



I thought that that was WalMart/Murphy USA.
 
Wow!
I had no idea that Speedway was as dominant as it is.
Surprised that Kroger is that big in this market, given their limited number of locations.
You can't spit in most of OH without hitting a Speeday, but Kroger doesn't even exist in the largest market in OH, the northern tier of the state.
What about all of the BP and Shell stations?
They aren't part of the dataset, or they really are that small in the Ohio market?
 
It would be interesting to see the rest of that list to see how the few major companies that are in the Ohio market fared.
My guess is that they aren't a factor.
Kroger is a player, now that they are introducing Turkey Hill mini marts where they do not have stations w/ pumps.
Speedway/Marathon totally dominate things as indicated by the statistics.
I think the real question is why some of the other majors, such as Conoco-Phillips cannot (or do not want to) compete in the market and why Exxon-Mobil cannot make any real headway.
 
Originally Posted By: sopususer
... I've bought Speedway while traveling through the Midwest with no issues, but from what I can gather in reading about Speedway, they are not generally viewed in a positive light where they operate. I hope my perception is wrong; guess time will tell.

Your perception is correct. Speedway aims to control the market, everyone else follows their lead on price gouging as they, for example, hike prices 30c when the market only shifted 10c. I reckon Speedway's business practices are despicable like Comcast.
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I quit wilco hess years ago, there was a wilco hess near exit 159 or so on I 26 in south carolina that had filthy rest rooms to the extent that toilet water was always (or so it seemed when I stopped in) on the floor, and the place had 10 or 12 pumps, so don't tell me "we can't afford to fix the problem" took them 6+ months.
nasty. I voted with my feet and bought elsewhere
 
Originally Posted By: BearZDefect
Originally Posted By: sopususer
... I've bought Speedway while traveling through the Midwest with no issues, but from what I can gather in reading about Speedway, they are not generally viewed in a positive light where they operate. I hope my perception is wrong; guess time will tell.

Your perception is correct. Speedway aims to control the market, everyone else follows their lead on price gouging as they, for example, hike prices 30c when the market only shifted 10c. I reckon Speedway's business practices are despicable like Comcast.
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Which stinks because Hess has some of the best prices around us and doesn't add a credit card surcharge, making them even better.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2


Which stinks because Hess has some of the best prices around us and doesn't add a credit card surcharge, making them even better.


I agree, i always sought out hess stations.
 
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
This explains what Speedway can do for local markets:

http://www.thegasgame.com/speedway-effect/


Just be happy you do not have to pay the CARB tax which helps to keep gas prices around and more often than not over 4.00 a gallon. Wait the EPA has mandated the entire U.S. adopt CARB gasoline standards. Speedway will be the least of your worries once this mandate is effective.
 
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