Mexican drivers flood into Calif. to buy cheaper gasoline

[Judi Lynn]

Mexican drivers flood into Calif. to buy cheaper gasoline
By Laura Blewitt and Robert Tuttle BLOOMBERG NEWS JANUARY 11, 2017

HOUSTON — Mexico’s fuel market liberalization has done something rarely seen before: Make California’s pump prices look cheap.

Drivers are flooding across the border to Southern California to fill up on gasoline, after protesters blocking distribution centers near the Baja California capital of Mexicali caused stations to run dry.

Antunez’s Shell gas station in Calexico is just five blocks from the Mexican border, and rarely has business been as busy as now. Mexicali drivers wait four to five hours to cross into the United States just to fill their fuel tanks and then wait another two hours to cross back into Mexico.

“Right now, it’s crazy,” Rodrigo Marquez, 30, a station employee, said by phone. “We are having a lot, lot of people, everybody is fueling up their tanks.”

More:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/01/11/mexican-drivers-flood-into-calif-buy-cheaper-gasoline/PylV6ryJkz1b3wzf9IetcN/story.html

[Truth321]

1. The headline is wrong.

Article says Mexicans coming to USA to get gas because protesters blocking distribution centers.

[Judi Lynn]

2. More from the same article:

As Mexico opened a formerly monopolized market to foreign competitors for the first time in nearly eight decades, the government increased fuel prices to attract imports and outside competition. The 20 percent hike, dubbed a “gasolinazo,” or fuel-price slam, sparked protests across the country that curtailed fuel distribution, leaving Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, struggling to keep its stations supplied.

Unleaded gas prices in Mexicali were raised in January to 16.17 pesos a liter, or $2.815 a gallon. Seventeen miles north in El Centro, Calif., prices jumped 5 cents a gallon overnight to average $2.715 on Wednesday, according to GasBuddy, a price-tracking company.