Speaking of Metro finances, it looks like the people who buy fuel for the buses have locked in a price of $3.55 a gallon until October of next year. The buy was completed in "midsummer," according to an e-mail from agency spokeswoman Raequel Roberts, when diesel averaged close to $5 a gallon. METRO's buy might have seemed like a deal at the time, but diesel prices have dropped to about $2.85 a gallon.
"We base our fuel purchase decisions on the need for budget certainty and...it would be folly to establish and live within a budget if we bought at market prices from month to month," Roberts writes. "No one predicted in August, when [regular] gas was $4 a gallon, that it would be $1.59 today."
Buyers guessed low last year and, according to the agency's figures,
saved about $17 million on fuel costs. Two years earlier, the agency
saved about $3 million. Weird thing is, in the years that fuel buys
weren't so great, Metro doesn't list any losses but lists savings as
"$0.0."
Either way, compared to the rest of us, Metro, which burns about 14 million gallons a year, is paying out its ass for fuel right now. Of course, $3.55 a gallon could seem like a bargain this time next year.
-- Paul Knight
Either way, compared to the rest of us, Metro, which burns about 14 million gallons a year, is paying out its ass for fuel right now. Of course, $3.55 a gallon could seem like a bargain this time next year.
-- Paul Knight
At least the Metro Board guessed right for it's CEO by giving him a generous 2009 car allowance. Wilson will be paying less for gas (using our tax dollars) while driving his car to the Metro Taj Mahal building on Main Street. Perhaps Mr. Wilson should order a report (similiar to New Jersey's 149 page report -the Making of a Procurement Disaster) on the wrongly bet Metro Fuel Hedge. Wilson could call it "the Making of a Fuel Hedge disaster". This could be the first of many 2009 /2010 "disaster reports" Wilson orders.
Posted at: November 25, 2008 1:12 PM