Local motorists may have to drive their dollar further with three of the region's service stations closing, blaming small profits, high costs and drive-offs.
Caltex service stations in Marton and Sanson are due to close shortly, while the BP station at Bulls closed its doors on Monday.
Reasons were varied, but low profit margins on petrol were part of the picture.
The retailer at Sanson's Caltex Service Station, Peter Willcox, said the profit on selling a litre of petrol was 4c.
"If somebody drives off with $50 of fuel, that's your profit for the day. It's just not profitable to own a service station unless your traffic flow is high, and then you want to be the only one [in the area]."
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Colin Williams, who subleases Marton's Caltex, said the site had been bought by an unknown party and was going to be developed.
"We're not going to be involved in that so we're going to get out before we're told to get out. Caltex aren't interested in putting anybody else in there."
He'd had a month-to-month contract for the previous six years, which hadn't been a problem until the new owner bought the site.
Marton would be left with a single Shell service station, at the other end of Wellington Road, and it would be busy.
"The town's plenty big enough for two. People aren't very happy."
The closure of Bulls' BP service station left the SH1 town with one Mobil alternative. The owner of BP Bulls, Peter Murphy, said business had slowed, the profit on petrol was slight and he couldn't keep up with his creditors.
British Petroleum, which owned the pumps and tanks, had given him 14 days to find a buyer. After that the tanks would be removed.
He was putting the business on the market.
Caltex Sanson retailer Peter Willcox said his service station's July 31 closure date was likely to be extended.
He leased the site from a Palmerston North man, and the building and underground petrol tanks needed replacing. Caltex owned the tanks and wouldn't supply petrol or let another oil company fill them.
Mr Willcox estimated it would cost about $3 million to replace the building and tanks.
"I wouldn't expect to get a return on that $3 million in 50 years, because the return on petrol isn't that great."
The Chevron Corporation, which sells Caltex petrol, didn't respond to questions yesterday. British Petroleum said the Bulls closure was the choice of the independent owner.
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