Having a hard time keeping up with the sharp increase in fuel prices lately?

Try being an independent garage owner who sells gasoline.

For service station owners and operators in the Bangor area, knowing when and by how much to change their retail gas prices often is a matter of walking out to the sidewalk and looking down the street to see what their nearest competitors charge. Knowing why their wholesale has jumped, however, is a different matter.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” Phil Cowan, owner and operator of Cowan’s Service Station in Brewer, said Wednesday. “I’ve been in the business for 30 years, and gasoline [pricing] has been wacko for 30 years.”

According to AAA’s online Daily Fuel Gauge Report, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in the Bangor area shot up nearly 10 cents overnight between July 10 and July 11. The average price in the Portland and Lewiston-Auburn areas increased approximately 5 cents during the same 24-hour time period.

The average price Friday in the Bangor area for a gallon of regular gas was nearly $2.34, according to AAA’s Web site. One month ago, the equivalent average price was approximately $2.13, while a year ago it was around $1.92.

Matt McKenzie, public affairs director for AAA Northern New England, said Thursday that gas prices have increased 10 cents per gallon since July 5. On the brighter side, crude oil prices have decreased a few dollars this week from a record high of more than $62 a barrel, he said.

According to Cowan, the profit margin for selling gasoline has always been just a few pennies, ever since he started in the business in the 1970s. Sometimes his profit is 5 cents a gallon and sometimes it is 10 cents, he said. Sometimes, however, a nearby station reduces its price to an amount that would eliminate Cowan’s profit margin altogether if he matched it.

“The margins haven’t changed [over 30 years],” he said. “Obviously, I can’t give it away.”

On Wednesday, as Cowan worked on a minivan in one of the service bays of his South Main Street business, the price posted at his gas pumps for a gallon of regular Citgo gasoline was $2.299. Two days later, that price had not changed.

Tony Arthers, manager for Doc’s Place on Wilson Street in Brewer, said Wednesday that the station sets its prices to match those posted at the Exxon station across the street. Both stations on Friday were selling a gallon of regular gas for $2.339, the same price each had been charging two days before.

Customers have not been happy with the recent price increases, Arthers said, but they good-naturedly accept that the cost is being driven up by the wholesale market.

“They realize what’s happening, but they like to blame someone about it,” he said.

At Bob’s Auto Sales and Service on Hammond Street in Bangor, the price Thursday and Friday for a gallon of regular Exxon gas also was $2.339, the same price charged by the station’s two nearest competitors.

Bob Graves, proprietor of the business, said Thursday that it is illegal to sell gas for cheaper than the wholesale price. He said he sets his prices by reading the prices posted at nearby gas stations.

“We stay with what they do,” Graves said. “If we want to [sell] gallons [of gas], we have to do what they do.”

Graves, who has a contract to buy gasoline wholesale from Webber Oil, said he has loyal customers who patronize his business regardless of the price. The garage, which Graves has run since 1982, offers only full service, as do the nearby stations. Residents of the surrounding Fairmount neighborhood prefer to have an attendant pump their gas, he said.

“The price shoppers aren’t our customers,” Graves said.

The price of other items for sale at his business – windshield wipers and soda, for example – also have gone up because of the effect oil prices have had on transportation costs, according to Graves. If not for the auto repair service at the station, he said, he would not still be in business.

According to Graves, gas prices in the Bangor area rose 18 cents over four days last week and since then have decreased only 4 cents.

“We’ve had better profit margins,” he said dryly.

AAA’s McKenzie said there was initial concern after last week’s bombings on the London Underground subway that global travel might be affected. As it has turned out, the biggest factor in the gas price increases has been uncertainty about whether tropical storms might affect oil production, he said.

“These [terrorism] concerns quickly faded,” he said. “Hopefully, oil production won’t be affected in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Cowan, however, expressed skepticism that terrorism or any other global factor is the reason why prices in Maine suddenly jump.

“They [oil companies] take any excuse they can to change the price,” he said. “I’ve heard all the excuses.”

In prepared statements this week, Irving Oil spokeswoman Michelle Firmbach indicated that though the worldwide demand for oil is at an all-time high, five major American refineries have been shut down temporarily as a result of tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean. These concerns have driven up the price Irving pays for crude oil, which it then refines into gasoline, according to Firmbach.

Cowan said the wholesale price he pays for gasoline changes from one tanker delivery to the next, and he has no choice but to pay whatever his Citgo supplier charges. He said that like most other stations, he gets three or four deliveries each week of roughly 8,000 to 12,000 gallons of gas with each delivery.

Because of the intense competition between neighboring gas stations, the degree or variety of services each station offers does not figure into what it charges for gas, according to Cowan. One station with a convenience store that offers only self-serve gasoline may have prices identical to a competitor across the street who has full-service attendants and no convenience items for sale, he said.

Cowan said that if his profit margins become too thin, he cannot simply raise his soda prices to make up for it because soda also is subject to the demands of competitive pricing and profit margins.

“It’s the same sort of thing,” he said. “[But] I can make more on a gallon of bottled water than on a gallon of gas.”

Cowan said logic would indicate that the further a tanker truck travels to deliver gas, the more expensive gas will be at the truck’s destination, but this is not always the case. In his experience, he said, gas prices in Norridgewock are almost always cheaper than in other areas.

Irving Oil’s Firmbach indicated that in addition to crude prices, taxes and the laws of supply and demand, local competition is a factor in determining how much stations charge for gas.

According to the Web site Mainegasprices.com, the lowest reported gasoline price in the Bangor area Friday was $2.26 at Sam’s Club on Haskell Road. The same listing indicated the lowest reported price in Waterville on Friday was $2.31, while in the Ellsworth area it was $2.33.

Several of the highest reported gas prices in Maine on Friday were at service stations in Washington County. Gas stations on Route 9 or in the Calais and Machias areas had posted prices around $2.50 per gallon, according to the Web site.