Worth the wait Business booming after Newport station lowers price at pump

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Bangor resident Steve Sias didn’t even need gas Tuesday morning, but when he saw the price at Valero’s station in Newport – $2.699 a gallon for regular – he pulled in and topped off his tank.

“I was truly shocked when I was driving by and saw the price,” Sias said. “It was $2.89 at my regular station in Bangor.”

A Newport businessman has made it his mission to offer the lowest price possible for gas and not gobble the profits.

Valero’s prices are 20 to 30 cents cheaper than most other stations, and the move is rippling through town. Other Newport stations are responding by dropping their prices as well.

Greg Lovley, who owns Triangle Plaza, Newport Motor Sports, Newport Entertainment Center and a handful of other businesses, purchased the Valero gas station this summer, and as prices crept up, up and out of sight everywhere else, Lovley’s prices dropped.

On Tuesday morning, gasoline in the Bangor-to-Pittsfield area ranged from $2.869 to $2.929 a gallon for regular unleaded.

At downtown Newport, on busy Route 2, however, cars were lined up at Valero. Drivers didn’t mind the wait in line or that the station has a pay-first policy.

Gas at Valero was $2.69. On a 20-gallon fill-up, one Pittsfield resident saved $3.20.

At those prices, simple math shows that Lovley is losing more than $10,000 a week in potential profits to keep his customers satisfied.

Valero Energy Corp., based in San Antonio, Texas, is the largest refiner in North America, with a refining network stretching from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast and West Coast to the Caribbean, according to its Web site. It has more than 5,000 retail and wholesale outlets in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean. It sells under the names of Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Ultramar and Beacon.

A clerk at a rival gas station in Pittsfield, who declined to be named, said Tuesday that she had noticed a drop in gas business since the prices dropped in Newport.

“I’ve been going there myself,” she said.

“The locals are loving it. Business is booming,” Valero’s manager, Mona Boucher, said Tuesday. “The trend is being set here. The other stations are being forced to lower their prices in order to compete.”

Lovley, who is a man of few public words, said Tuesday that he preferred to keep a low profile and would give only “payback” as his reason for lowering the prices.

Lovley wouldn’t clarify what that meant. Payback could mean revenge to the higher-priced stations at the Triangle business district, or it could mean offering gas savings to thank the Newport area residents who patronize Lovley’s other business ventures.

“He bought [Valero] just to bring the prices down,” Boucher said.

Whatever the reason, people in the area are happy to reap the rewards.

Dan Ready of Detroit was filling up his vehicle and said he thought other gas stations are price gouging.

“[Another local gas station] has been raping the public for too long,” Ready said Tuesday. “Mr. Lovley has come to the rescue.

“I say to Greg Lovley, this is a good deed. Well done.”

Nearly every customer who came in to pay for gas Tuesday morning also picked up a paper, coffee or other items from the store, which is being remodeled and expanded.

That’s just the point, Boucher said. Patrons coming for gas often pick up items in the store or stop at other Newport businesses.

“Now people are coming from Skowhegan and Bangor, and they see what we have to offer here in Newport,” the manager said.

“Any profit that Mr. Lovley is making, he is making from the convenience store,” Boucher said. “He is only making pennies on the gas.”

Boucher said Lovley pledged when he purchased the gas station, as well as Newport Citgo farther west on Route 2, that he would immediately drop prices “where they should be.”

“He just wanted them at a reasonable level that people could afford,” she said. “This is not a price war. It is just a business decision.”

Business at the pumps has been nonstop, bumper-to-bumper from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. since the prices began dropping. Business inside the store has tripled.

At the Irving Big Stop on Route 2 at Interstate 95, prices also had dropped to remain competitive. Irving was offering regular at $2.69, the same price as Valero’s.

Rob Wilson, spokesman for the U.S. division of Irving Oil, said Tuesday that “competitive market forces” obviously have an effect on prices.

“Gas retailing is a competitive and highly visible business,” Wilson said. “Today was a good day in the Newport area.”

Boucher said the station now is selling a minimum of 8,000 gallons of gas a day and has set up accounts for most of the local businesses, including the town of Newport.

“We are busy all day. It has been just incredible,” Boucher said.