Or all the miscellaneous expenses related to owning/operating loading facilities, pipelines, transportation (trucks), stations – on and on.
Back around 1990 Oregon began requiring ALL stations to replace their tanks with double-walled tanks and in the process had to clean up and dispose of any contaminated soil from old tanks.
Virtually ALL the little mom & pop stations closed up shop. Simply couldn’t afford one million plus to clean up and swap tanks. Very, very few survive today. Darn-nearly EVERY station in the state is company owned or owned in some manner by the bigger distributors.
Doing something as invasive as digging up the lot and ripping out tanks (for the large companies) usually results in their tearing the old station out and going up with a new, bigger station with new-everything and a convenience store, car wash, etc – assuming the location can support it.
Chevron decides to plunk down five million to put up a brand new station somewhere, it’s because they *intend* to get every cent back – plus more. And while you’re at it you’ll end up with computerized-everything to monitor test wells and a system to contain spills and wastewater runoff, etc.
Plus they’re going to have to insure against future liability regarding contamination (or self-insure) – and that’s the thing that put a lot of the smaller shops out of business. Even if they could theoretically afford to put in the new tanks, their business simply couldn’t afford the premiums to protect against possible future problems. It all adds up – and it’s ALL courtesy of American (and Oregon) voters. They like to cause themselves a problem, then they like to complain that they have a problem. I’ve gotten to where I ignore them, mostly.