From the Editor: Running on fumes in Morgan City

Yemeni rebels, or Iran, according to the Trump administration, attacked a couple of Saudi oil facilities Saturday, knocking out 10-12% of the world’s oil production.
Will prices go up? Will prices stay up? Will the economy go into a funk?
And why is gasoline so expensive around here?
OK, $2.35 gas in Morgan City isn’t likely to show up on “Meet the Press” Sunday. But if you drive between, say Houma and Morgan City or Lafayette and Morgan City, you have to wonder.
Monday, I filled up at a Race Trac in Lafayette for $1.919 a gallon. Then I cussed, because a nearby Super 1 had gas for $1.899.
Sixty-seven miles down U.S. 90 in Patterson, Berwick and Morgan City, gas was going for $2.28-$2.35.
There was no sense in cussing. It’s been like that for at least four years. The difference is 20 cents a gallon 90% of the time, and often 30 or even 40 cents.
I’ve asked knowledgeable people why this might be. Their lips move, and no usable information is imparted. We can speculate, but first let’s get something out of the way.
Energy prices started climbing for real in 1973, the year of the last big Arab-Israeli war and the ensuing OPEC oil boycott that jacked gasoline up to — gasp! — 50 cents a gallon. Now, $2.35 looks awfully expensive compared to the good old days.
But if you go to the handy inflation calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, you’ll find that 50 cents in December 1973 is worth $2.78 in August 2019 dollars. So even where gas is relatively expensive, it’s cheap in historical terms.
Besides, 1973 wasn’t exactly the good old days. We had a big Mississippi River flood (and the debut of barge-sinking in Bayou Chene). We had the Senate Watergate hearings. We had gas lines. We had our ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam.
We had lime green polyester leisure suits. Those were dark days for our nation.
It’s also about the time when drivers changed the way they bought gasoline.
Before then, you bought gasoline at a service station. You pulled alongside a pump, driving over a hose that made a bell ring in the station. Someone came running out to pump the gas, wash your windshield, and check your oil and tires.
You didn’t have to get out of the car. If you did, it was probably to look at the calendar the station got from an auto parts dealer. Winter or summer, the calendar had a picture of a busty woman in coveralls that hardly covered anything.
I’ve been told that in those days, gasoline was considered a low-margin product. Mechanics sold gas to lure customers in for auto repairs, which is where they made their real money.
If there was a station across the street with gas for a penny less (and maybe a better auto parts calendar), our mechanic might lose repair business. So you could drive through a good-size city in which every station sold gas for the same price, which was about as low as the stations could stand.
By the mid-1980s, we were buying our gas at convenience stores, and later still at stands outside big-box stores. Now, instead of being a loss-leader to lure customers, gasoline seems to be an end in itself.
Once you could get a lube job at your gas station. Now you get McNuggets, or Subway or Church’s chicken. Or, in our area, the wings at Stazione. You fill up while you pick up lunch.
A nifty article at bizfluent.com lists all the ways stores try to get customers to buy their gas: loyalty programs (“Do you have a so-and-so card?” the pump’s card reader asks you); contests and promotions; amenities like TV screens showing sports scores while you fill up; and those partnerships with retailers.
But they’re doing the same things in Lafayette and Houma. So why the difference in price here?
The federal Energy Information Admin-istration tells us that the price of crude oil makes up 56% of the price of gasoline. Taxes add another 17%. Refining accounts for 13%.
The rest, something like 13%, is marketing and distribution. Our position an hour’s drive away from even a modest metro area probably tacks some pennies onto the price of gasoline.
Whatever the cause, any spike that occurred because of the attack on Saudi facilities seems unlikely to last long. The attack happened Saturday, and oil jumped about $8 to $62 a barrel Monday. But it was back down to $56 Wednesday.
Before you know it, we’ll be back to paying the usual amount more than neighboring cities pay.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.