$9 Gas? Station Owners Double Prices in Protest

By Judith Welikaka, TIME

Credit: Jonathan Berr for NBCNews.com

A Lukoil station in Mount Laurel, N.J., was selling gas for $9.99 a gallon Wednesday in a protest by station owners.

September 14, 2012 Updated Sep 14, 2012 at 2:56 PM PDT

Motorists in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were greeted to an unwanted surprise on Wednesday, when the the price of gas — without any prior notice — appeared to nearly double, with some stations charged an eye-watering $9.99 per gallon.

But according to NBC News, the sudden price hike doesn’t have anything to do with a drastic cut in supply or sudden mideast turmoil. Instead, it’s a protest by more than 50 Lukoil franchise owners across the two northeastern states against the Russian-owned petroleum giant.

At issue is Lukoil’s practice of “zone pricing,” in which wholesale gas prices the station-owners pay to Lukoil can differ by as much as 25 cents a gallon, even if the stations are quite close to each other.

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