I think that's the norm. The highest fuel prices in Washington tend to be in Whatcom County, where Bellingham is along with two of the state's four refineries. Gas is cheaper on the other side of the mountains out in the wheat fields than it is down the road from the refineries. I'm sure the oil companies have a "reason" why this is so but I don't know what it is.
Perhaps it's the same reason that when I lived there, C&H sugar was more expensive in Hawaii than on the mainland. The official rationale was that even though C&H had a small refinery on Oahu that theoretically produced enough refined sugar for local use, it didn't. So the cost of sugar in Hawaii included the cost of shipping it to the Oakland refinery, refining it, and then shipping it back. And since it was too much of a hassle to package and price the sugar from the local refinery differently than the sugar from Oakland, and to make it 'fair" to all the stores that carried C&H sugar (which was all of them), they simply charged the Oakland price no matter where the sugar came from.
So maybe that's what they're doing with the fuel that comes from the refineries that are down the street from you.
-- Edited by Marin on Monday 27th of February 2012 01:50:17 AM
Perhaps it's the same reason that when I lived there, C&H sugar was more expensive in Hawaii than on the mainland. The official rationale was that even though C&H had a small refinery on Oahu that theoretically produced enough refined sugar for local use, it didn't. So the cost of sugar in Hawaii included the cost of shipping it to the Oakland refinery, refining it, and then shipping it back. And since it was too much of a hassle to package and price the sugar from the local refinery differently than the sugar from Oakland, and to make it 'fair" to all the stores that carried C&H sugar (which was all of them), they simply charged the Oakland price no matter where the sugar came from.
So maybe that's what they're doing with the fuel that comes from the refineries that are down the street from you.
-- Edited by Marin on Monday 27th of February 2012 01:50:17 AM