GasBuddy: Costco Sells The Cheapest Gasoline In The U.S.

With motorists expected to spend $17 billion less at the pump in 2016 compared to 2015, GasBuddy’s 2016 Fuel Price Outlook virtually guarantees that $3.00 a gallon gasoline is a thing of past – at least for the foreseeable future.

With a predicted U.S. national average of $2.28 per gallon in 2016, many consumers are upping their game and trying to beat even these historic low prices. For many, the solution may be as close as the nearest Costco COST warehouse.

Related: Why JPMorgan Called Costco 'A 2016 Story Stock'

Costco

According to data submitted to GasBuddy by its huge network of price spotters, wholesale club, Costco, sold gasoline in 2015 for an average price of 19.8 cents/gallon lower than its competition.

The company came in number one in 12 different states including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.

Quik Stop

Quik Stop, which came in second overall, averaged 17.8 cents/gallon lower than its competitors.

This was good enough for first place among traditional convenience stores although Quik Stop failed to top any state list.

Arco

Arco’s 1305 traditional gasoline outlets made the third spot overall with gas that averaged 17.6 cents/gallon less than its neighbors.

As a subsidiary of Tesoro Corporation TSO, Arco was the only traditional gas retailer to make it to GasBuddy’s Top 25 list this year. The company came in first place overall in Nevada and just behind Costco in Arizona and Oregon.

Fred Meyer

Fred Meyer superstore gasoline stations took fourth in overall price rankings with average per gallon prices almost 13 cents below their competitors.

Fred Meyer stations were first overall in Alaska and Idaho and first in the state of Washington when excluding wholesale clubs such as Sam’s and Costco.

USA Gasoline

Holding down the number five spot on a nationwide basis, USA Gasoline, with 264 stations sold gas in 2015 at a price that average almost 12 cents a gallon below the competition.

USA Gasoline, another subsidiary of Tesoro, has stations in 10 states – Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Behind The Numbers

GasBuddy selects its Low Price winners by analyzing the 657 million individual price submissions by members. Then it compares each brand’s prices (by ZIP code) to the average price of local competition.

“Each day, millions of drivers utilize GasBuddy for real-time information on where is the cheapest place to fuel up,” said Jason Toews, co-founder of GasBuddy. “We are happy to once again honor the retailers across the nation that provide low prices based on the data we have collected by GasBuddy price spotters.”

Related: GasBuddy: It's All In The (Price) Spread

Get The App

Aside from monitoring data compiled by GasBuddy, the key to finding the least expensive gas where you live is the free GasBuddy app, which can be downloaded at www.gasbuddy.com/app.

According to GasBuddy, its “app and website have the most real-time fuel prices at over 130,000 unique stations in the United States and Canada.”

One helpful added feature comes in the form of price hike alerts that arrive just ahead of anticipated increases in gas prices at the local level.

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco  had no position in any mentioned securities.