Soaring gas prices!

What a headline right? I guess by now we’ve all read what is going on, and we all have an opinion on it. I’ve heard reasons from the wars in the middle east all the way to the cries of the masses demanding that the oil companies stop ripping us off. At the end of the day we can’t prevent gas prices from going up, but we can do something to help keep our cost in check!
We are always looking at different ways to help 360 customers save money on their fuel expense, including by using some sort of hedge or fuel price protection program. The problem has been that the programs were too complex and would require a huge upfront cost to the fleet. We had put this on the back burner for awhile until we came across a company called FuelFox. This company allows fleets to purchase fuel at today’s price and lock in against future rising gas prices.
There are a couple different ways the program works within FuelFox, allowing for companies to either lock in at a price no matter what or, if the fuel price drops on the street, you pay the lower price on the fuel. In either option you first go on line and check out the average gas price in your area. When the price looks good go ahead and purchase a set amount of gallons which will be stored in your virtual fuel tank.
The first option means you will always pay whatever price you locked in at regardless of street price. This is great for companies who need to set a budget for their fuel for a given amount of time. Schools and other municipalities love this option because they do not have to worry about the market volatility causing them to go off budget in a time like this.
The second option is great for fleets who want to ensure that they will receive the lowest price at the time of pumping. Now when you go to the fuel station, if the price is above what you paid, you will automatically use those ‘virtual gallons’ saving you the difference between the pump price and what you paid. If, however, you are at the pump and the current retail price is lower than the virtual gallons price, you pay the pump price – saving the virtual gallons for a later time.
One of the main advantages to this program is that it is tied right to your 360 mixed fleet fuel card meaning you can buy fuel wherever you want and all of the tracking is done on-line. The minimum purchase is just 100 gallons at a time, and the gallons do not expire. The only fee associated with the program is 1% of initial purchase per month. In other words, if you bought 100 gallons today, and used them all in one month, your fee would only be 1 gallon. If you kept that 100 gallons for 6 months, the fee would have been 6 gallons over that time. Everything about this program is easy, and made with the fleet in mind.

We will be starting our Fuel Price Protection Webinars regarding our new program soon, and of course check out the FAQ Page for answers to some of the questions you may have.

As I said, we are always looking and would love to hear what others are doing to get ahead as we can all learn from each other. Let us know if you have any questions we can help with and what you doing to help your company save money with these rising fuel prices.