Originally posted by Gidge Plect Nyaper

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$3.19 - $3.25 roughly in Chesapeake, VA. Down from the $3.(6)(7)(8)x of pre-Summer.

But when I go to DC I see $5.xx all the time, even in Arlington.

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Originally posted by Guru Zim

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Generally you'll only see rates that bad near a rental car return by the airport, or if someone has the only Chevron in an area where a large business is filling up with that type of credit card. I wonder which one is in play where you are seeing it for 5?


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Click Here (washingtonpost.com)Surely, I think, the new owner can tell me why gas is so expensive. But it turns out there is a rather tortured recent history to the Watergate Exxon. The person who bought it three years ago is Eyob “Joe” Mamo, the gas station king of Washington, who is either a shining immigrant success story or a cutthroat monopolist.

Just because Mamo owns the station doesn’t mean he runs the station. It is operated by the same outfit that operated it in Exxon’s day: Metroil Inc., a company run by a man named Roland Joun.

Joun is unhappy that he was not offered the opportunity to buy the station and so he sued Exxon. He lost, appealed, then, just last month, lost the appeal. Joun has a contract to operate the station and must buy his gas from Mamo.

Says Mamo: “In my opinion, in protest of the fact that he did not buy the station he jacked up the price significantly.”

And then I do hear from Roland Joun, who tells me Dan Gilligan is right: He doesn’t want to sell much gas. Joun is locked in a mortal struggle with Mamo, whom he accuses of jacking up the wholesale price he must pay. (Mamo denies this.)

Joun says the more gas he sells, the more money he loses.

“I’m going to be charging six or seven dollars, whatever it takes to let me stay in business,” Joun says. “The only way I can recoup our rate is to sell less volume and make more money.”

If Joun does charge $7 a gallon, the Watergate Exxon may get even more famous.

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