Editor’s note:This post was guest blogged by Dan Tanner of dan-ruth-tanner.com
The price of gasoline in Dominica has just been lowered to EC$12.01 per gallon. How does that compare to the current price of the same product in the US? After all, it’s been said that Venezuela has been helping Dominica to cope with high energy prices. If true, that would be great. While much energy is being wasted in the relatively well-off US, in Dominica energy costs – translated to what farmers must pay to transport their goods to market, what bus owners pay to transport people, and what everyone pays for electricity generation – is a huge burden to a far less well-off Dominica.
Well, the magic number to convert EC$ per UK gallon to US$ per US gallon is 0.295. (That is, EC$ divided by 2.71 = US$ and 0.8 UK gallon equals 1 US gallon; thus 0.8/2.71=0.295.)
Therefore, the current price of one US gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in Dominica equals paying US$3.54 per US gallon at the pump in the US. But I paid US$2.55 per US gallon in Massachusetts this past weekend. That is EC$6.91 for a US gallon, which is 4/5 of a UK gallon. So, EC$6.91 times 5/4 would be EC$8.64 per UK gallon. (Update: My wife bought gas today for US$2.43 per US gallon. That comes to only EC$8.24 per UK gallon!)
If regular unleaded gasoline costs EC$8.64 per UK gallon in the US, why does it cost EC$12.01 (EC$3.37 more) in Dominica? Is this what Venezuela calls “largesse�
Remember these conversion numbers, they’re handy when you see or hear news about gasoline prices coming from the USA.
- Multiply the price in EC$ per UK gallon (at most pumps) by 0.295 to get the equivalent US$ per US gallon.
- Multiply the price in EC$ per liter (at some pumps) by 0.71 to get the equivalent US$ per US gallon.
I think that Dominica deserves a better deal.
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