Gas price policy has motorists enraged

[unhappycamper]

Gas price policy has motorists enraged
By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, November 23, 2008

An erratic economy is testing the way retailers at military bases in Japan and Okinawa price their gasoline.

The cost of gas has stagnated for five months despite a policy by the area’s main retailers to closely match domestic fuel prices. Motorists who buy gas on Japan and Okinawa bases now pay 96 percent more than the plunging U.S. average, according to figures released Monday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Two factors — free-falling prices in the States and the Department of Defense maintaining its current price structure — have prompted the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and Navy Exchange retailers in Japan and Okinawa to keep pump prices unusually high.

AAFES and NEX now buy DOD gas for almost twice as much as it’s worth in the United States.

Neither retailer has made a profit — or decided to sell gas at a loss — since July, officials have said.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58989