Awash In Profits, Exxon Extracting Every Penny From Its Franchisees

Washington Post:

Every time Sohaila Rezazadeh rings up a sale at her Exxon station on Chain Bridge Road in Oakton, her cash register sends the information to Exxon Mobil's central computers. If she raises the price of gasoline a couple of pennies, chances are that Exxon will raise the wholesale price she pays by the same amount.

Through a password-protected Web portal, Exxon notifies Rezazadeh of wholesale price changes daily. That way the oil giant, which is earning about $3.3 billion a month, fine-tunes the pump prices at the franchise Rezazadeh has owned for 12 years.

Now, however, Rezazadeh says she cannot stay in business. Credit-card fees are eating her profit margins. Exxon, which owns the station land, last week handed Rezazadeh a new lease raising her rent about 30 percent over the next three years. She stuck a copy on the window of her station to show customers who are angry about soaring pump prices. Rezazadeh has told Exxon that she cannot make money with the rent that high. Her territory manager's reply, she said, was simple: When you go, leave us the keys.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[truthyguy]

Time for Bush and Cheney to send legislation to Capital Hill giving the oil companies another tax break.
A mere $3.3 Billion a month is hardly a living.

[wolf58]

THE NEW BOSTON TEA PARTY

BOYCOTT ALL EXXON MOBIL PRODUCTS for one year.

Its time to take back America one oil company at a time.
This is a National Security Issue

[KillTheMessenger]

Let me know when you are successful.

[Wiredwilly]

BOYCOTT EXXON-MOBILE / BP-AMOCO
TARGET $ 2.50 Premium

" Supply is organized, demand is not. Organize Demand. " ..Boston T. Party

[KillTheMessenger]

That's one of the longest lived dumb ideas I know off (except maybe for the perpetual motion machine). Since when is it around? The 1950s? Did it work, ever?

[darthdarcy]

Nationalize The Oil Companies and start calling for this every chance you get..!

The hell with them and all the speculators pushing up the prices..!

[eredux]

Check out this US Energy Footprint Map, an interactive United States Energy Consumption Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States and more. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State energy consumptions, demographics and State energy offices.

http://www.eredux.com/states/

[nopartygal]

The only way out of this mess is to severely boycott Exxon-Mobil, until we have caused a serious enough price war to get gas prices down to under $2.00/Gal. And that means not buying at *any* Exxon-Mobil pumps - or their "independent" affiliates - until at least the end of the year or longer. I started doing this in March. I avoid the "independent stations" because I don't know who they're buying from. Don't want to inadvertently shoot myself in the foot.... When I see $1.99/gal, I will consider going back to buying Exxon-Mobil again. Please think about this and do it too. And do tell all your friends to do the same, so we can speed this whole process up.

[KillTheMessenger]

Did the price come down? No? I think you need to call the Chinese. They haven't heard of your efforts, yet.

[KOisGod]

I live in the SF bay area, and gas is $4 + everywhere. I don't see any less traffic, people still driving 70 - 80 on the freeways, racing around in their loud cars and trucks.

Its like a drunken college idiot, swilling beers down as fast as they can, naive of the horrid hangover coming by morning. Or maybe people are just self destructive by nature, its in our DNA to thumb our nose at any upcoming disater.

Maybe idiot bush was summing up America, "bring it on".

[KillTheMessenger]

It's a TWELVE step addiction recovery program. We need to give people some time. They barely had time to go through step one.

[KOisGod]

1. We admitted we were powerless over oil—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to oil-holics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

May GOD help us. We won't very likely do it alone.

[ErnestineBass]

Yep.

[robinhood2]

Diesel fuel was over $5 a gallon near the Walnut Creek BART (rapid transit) station on Sunday, at an off brand station. The middle class is getting squeezed. Empty retail locations are more noticeable, even in this upscale area.

[richardmcnoggin]

OK; Im ready for my alternative fuel for my vehicle..... Where is it? ...Hurry!!! ...Where can I buy it ?.......

[KOisGod]

Dear Big Oil,

When the parasite keep sucking its host's blood unchecked, eventually that host will whither and die. You are a parasite on the blood vessel of the world economy, and after you have withdrawn our lifeblood and given nothing back, you too will have killed that which sustains you.

[KillTheMessenger]

There is no need for a lot of these stations now. With rising gasoline prices consumption will drop. My Prius only needs gas every two weeks and I always go to the same station which consistently happens to be the cheapest. Competition works. Maybe not the way some gas station owners like it, but then, nobody forced them to go into this business in the first place. I would predict that ten years from now Americans will use half as much gas as they use today and gas station utilization will be much higher. Which means that two out of three gas stations can and will be closed.

[Vyvjala]

The prophet and his prius, what a nexium moment....­..........­..........­.

[KillTheMessenger]

The prophet has another follower: a neighbor who asked us a few weeks ago about how we liked the car, how much it consumed in the real world and how much insurance we had to pay just bought one. One simply can't argue with reality.

[richardmcnoggin]

I cant run my trucking company driving around in a Prissyius....

[RedEyes]

We could get all foamed up at the mouth over this article, or we could try to analyze it rationally.

Why would the oil companies explicitely try to put their distributors out of business? Who are they going to sell their gasoline to then? When this Exxon station goes out of business, their customers will go to the Shell across the street. How is that helping Exxon? These companies are in competition with eachother.

Clearly, people here don't understand basic economics. I guess it's easier to blame "Big Oil".

[ErnestineBass]

Ummm...could it be that their franchisees are making more than minimum wage, and "Big Oil" intends to rid itself of the franchisees, but not the station itself?

Ever think about that?

[KillTheMessenger]

The cheapest station in my neighborhood is an independent operator. There are lines at his station day and night. Guess he must be doing something right...

[darthdarcy]

Exxon Mobil owns 3,800 of this type of station their franchise stations now When we Nationalize these bastards every Oil Company in America station such as these 3,800 can continue to operate and provide a service but pay only a small reasonable franchise fee which would then allow 3,800 or more families to pay mortgages and for college educations..!

We must Nationalize the America Oil Companies 61% of these prices are pure speculation energy for our nation is a vital national asset and cannot not be any longer subjected to this type of pimp economics..!

Nationalize the America Oil Companies and all Holdings then we can cut costs by 30-35% and create a huge economic boom that will benefit every American and their businesses promote rather than strangle commerce..!

This would leave us $50-60 billion per year to develop alternate energy and new technologies..!

Remember the Oil Companies are not in the business of putting themselves out of business..!

Spread the word..

[Mosharm]

Thats the most ridiculous statement. Yeah lets be just like Iran or Venezuela and nationalize companies. You think our currency has a problem now, even the suggestion of nationalizing would devalue the dollar making everything more expensive.

[darthdarcy]

You have no idea of what you are Talking about..!

Cutting our energy costs by 30-35% will only strengthen our Economy and our failing Dollar..!

It will create and Economic Boom if you don't know fundamental macro economics listen and learn there is a reason some of the best listen to me...and my brothers are Phd Fulbright Professors and the directors of Global finance who I bounce this stuff off of there are so many simple solutions if you were educated from a young age with Philosophy and Economics as I was..for all our economic woes and we could turn all this around and create a huge economic boom..

Nationalize Oil and all holdings and all Energy

Nationalize the Airlines and require all maintenance be done here in America

Peg the Sub Prime Mortgages to 3% above the Fed Rate and or even Prime Rate..and forgive all penalties to date..1/2 of which are illegal anyway..

Set Credit Card Interest Rates at 15% no higher..

And Single Payer Health Care by running our insurance companies health care section non profit and require full coverage..for cures..

Simple as that..

[Vyvjala]

bush and his administration are members of the corporate mafia, which are no different from drug kingpins and their cartels...­..........­......

[BillN]

Stop doing business with Exxon-Mobil.

Exxon-Mobil is a corporation making obscene profits that takes taxpayer-funded subsidies out of our treasury that could be better utilized to up-armor our military vehicles and save lives, or provide needed aid to victims of Katrina and other natural disasters. Where is their patriotism if they are so profitable? Our troops don't warrant their giving up of government money that they no longer need?

Exxon-Mobil is a corporation claiming bragging rights as the most profitable corporation in the world yet they haven't paid a single dime of their fines to the State of Alaska for the Exxon Valdez disaster - and THEY were responsible for this, as well as the destruction of the livlihoods of hundreds - if not thousands - of Alaskan citizens. They would rather spend their money on high-priced lawyers to take their case to the new corporate-friendly Supreme Court.

Corporations have a duty to the communities in which they exist and do business - just like us ordinary citizens. Corporations like Exxon-Mobil wish to be recognized as "human entities" but feel they are an exception to the rules that the rest of us have to live by.

Exxon-Mobil is an irresponsible corporate citizen that does not deserve one dime of the hard-earned and dwindling income of any American. I would rather walk 10 miles past an Exxon-Mobil station with an empty gas can than do business with these cretins.

[incontempt]

Time to Nationalize the oil industry in the name of national security. Our tax's are paying their bills and their profits are swamping and removing competition allowing greater control of the market. Thank cheney for such a nice short term energy plan, Now what to do since the "rapture" hasn't arrived.

[darthdarcy]

That's right Nationalize the Oil Companies and use to money yo cut prices and fund new energy sources and new technologies and we can create an economic boom while doing it..!

Nationalize the Oil Companies and all holdings including Halliburton..!

[KillTheMessenger]

Pssst... you do know that these oil companies do not own most of the oil fields from which they are pumping, right? That could seriously complicate your little plan. Just saying...

[OverCoffee]

I read the whole article, and it left me bitter. What I would like to read more about is how Brazil completely solved their dependence on other countries for oil. They began using ethanol made from sugar cane, not corn. Sugar ethanol is 7x more efficient than corn. Well over half of Brazil's cars are called Flex cars which use sugar cane ethanol. I saw this on a CNN special, Out of Gas, but haven't seen a word about anywhere else since then. There's a reason for this, and there's also a reason that none of the oil companies will install ethanol pumps in US gas stations. They plan to rape us out of every last dollar we have while lying that they're doing everything they can to help solve the problem.

Let's put these cutthroats out of business! Spread the word --> sugar cane ethanol = no oil dependence.

[vippy]

Here again, capitalism works well in the US and those rich will depress anything that blossoms
from inventors. They either buy it up or they will do away with the inventor one way or another.
Don't you people hear when congress recently passed the new energy bill or having 35 mpgs by
the year 2020? Don't you hear what they are saying? Geez, people wake up. Don't blame the
oil industry, blame congress. Did they not pass the Commodities Future's Modernization Act?
That piece of paper is responsible for the energy prices, housing collapse and banking mess.
In the meantime telling the pubic that we have reached peak oil and China is using more oil
is such a baloney, is that why Saudi and Iran are storing their excess oil in tankers on the ocean?

[KillTheMessenger]

"... why Saudi and Iran are storing their excess oil in tankers on the ocean?"

Because they aren't. There is no such thing as excess oil. If you don't need it, you just don't pump it. It's kind of the same as with "excess water" from your tap... if you don't need it, you just close the tap. Only an insane person would leave the tap running and then collect buckets of "excess water" in their back yard.

[BillN]

I agree. If we are waiting for the government to do something about this, we're never going to see any tangible results. There are many other good alternatives, but companies like Exxon-Mobil spend millions to make certain we don't learn about these things. We are going to have to take matters in our own hands and do this for ourselves. There is a lot of literature out there as to how we can make this happen.

If you would like to learn more about alcohol fuel, and how it was extensively used by our farmers in the late 1800's and early 1900's, read Dr. David Blume's book, "Alcohol Can Be a Gas", and order his DVD. You will discover some interesting facts about how we became slaves to the gasoline economy and what the Prohibition period was REALLY about.

The oil companies have been screwing us for much longer than anyone today would suspect.

[KillTheMessenger]

What you forgot to mention is that per capita Brazilians use one sixth of the amount of oil (11bbl/day/1000) that is being used in the US (70bbl/day/1000):

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con_percap-energy-oil-consumption-per-capita

Now, as soon as all Americans conserve over 80% of their current oil consumption, I promise you America to be completely independent of imports. It's really as easy as comparing apples with oranges.

[ChiGuy]

I'm sure during the mandatory training that new franchisees have to go through includes a segment on pride in one's uniform. Taking pride in the the logo on your shirt and on the sign outside, and the company it represents.

The excessive profits on the backs of all Americans, and now on the backs of the people selling their products, Exxon (As well as the other oil companies) rapes the country.