Remember a few days ago I made the observation that Speedway had gas at $3.31 per gallon while Mobile and Shell had it for considerably less at $3.09 per gallon? It is normally reversed: Speedway is the discount pricer while the Shell's of the world have the premium priced product.

Well I read a story in the paper today that explained what I saw. The discount and independent gas stations buy their gas on the spot market, while the big guys lock in prices with long term contracts. Normally the independents can get gas cheaper on the spot market, but because of all the supply disruptions the spot market has gone crazy, while the big guy's locked-in contract prices protect them from short term price fluctuations.

The story said to expect to see the discount stations having significantly higher prices than the big guys for quite a while.