With gasoline prices at five-year lows, Harford County residents and other customers, including local governments, are in many cases enjoying the unusual boost to their pocketbooks.
The profits are not necessarily being felt, however, by local fuel distributors, who seem more uncertain about the ultimate impact of the drop in world crude oil prices, which have in turn pushed down prices at the pump.
Baltimore's average price for regular unleaded gasoline was $2.57 in the middle of December slightly higher than the national average of $2.45 per gallon, according to a Dec. 19 report from AAA Mid-Atlantic. A week later, most retail stations around Harford have been selling regular for between $2.30 and $2.35 a gallon.
Global forecasters haven't been able to pinpoint where retail prices will settle amid a world wide glut of crude oil, largely the result of the United States producing more oil and natural gas because of hydraulic fracking and other technologies.
Local governments, many which have contracts to buy fuel in bulk for their vehicles, are eyeing the benefits from the lower prices, but they may not all be immediate.
Harford County is locked into a contract until June 2015 as part of a consortium with other Baltimore-area counties, spokesperson Cindy Mumby said.
Under that contract, which started August 2014, the county is paying $2.82 for unleaded gas and $3.145 for diesel, Mumby said.
She pointed out, however, that the contract means "we were locked in at $2.82 when the prices were way higher."
Local businesses that supply gasoline and other fuel, meanwhile, are less enthusiastic about making a profit, as are retail gasoline sellers.
Aberdeen-based Ferrell Fuel, which does most of its business delivering heating oil and propane to residential customers, has seen a small impact from the five-year price drop but not a huge one, company comptroller Chuck Limmer said last week.
The drop in prices has been positive "in that homeowners have more money," he said, noting that providing gasoline makes up a very small part of its business. "It's just that the cost of the fuel has gone down, so we are able to pass that along."
"It's good for everybody in the long run," Limmer said. "The only negative thing is that it's happening very quickly and that generally is not sustainable."
With heating oil, the only original pick-up in profit was from people being willing to turn their heat up higher, he said.
"It hasn't been substantial in nature," Limmer said of the savings to the company. "We really have to see how winter plays out."
Darrel Fritsche, manager of Maui's Car Wash in Bel Air, said he is also not necessarily seeing more money in his pocket. The car wash on Baltimore Pike historically has held some of the area's lowest pump prices.
"People are obviously buying gas but it's not necessarily translating into profit per se," Fritsche said Tuesday. "It's been such a short time with the upswing, it's really impossible to say with any degree of certainty what effect it's had."
Nevertheless, Fritsche predicted that with greater reliance on fracking and other global factors, "lower gas prices are going to be here to stay. I don't really see it as high as in the past because, really, fracking is coming into its own."
Harford County government uses about 800,000 gallons of unleaded gas annually and 400,000 gallons of diesel, although that includes consumption by other agencies, such as the Town of Bel Air government, which reimburses the county, Mumby said.
The county is budgeting $1,791,603 for unleaded gas costs for 2015, slightly more than the $1,663,788 actually spent in fiscal year 2014, she said. It is budgeting $2,166,970 for fiscal year 2015, more than the $1,618,638 spent this fiscal year.
The City of Aberdeen spent $299,394 for gasoline and diesel for fiscal year 2014, finance director Opiribo Jack said Tuesday.
"We budgeted about the same amount for [fiscal year] 2015," Jack said via email last week. "Therefore, the drop in price would benefit the city."
The City of Aberdeen's Public Works Department used to have contracts for fuel, but its former public works director, who left over the summer, decided not to sign one, Jack said. As a result, the city goes with the market price, he explained.
"That's one of the risks of not having a contract," Jack said. "Definitely with the lower gas prices, we are going to benefit from it."
George DeHority, finance director for the City of Havre de Grace, said officials go out on the spot market every time they need to buy fuel and obtain three competitive bids at each purchase.
"The city has made [one] purchase of 7,000 gallons of diesel this year and paid $2.79. We paid $3.10 on the last purchase last year [in June 2014]," DeHority said in an email.
"Unleaded gasoline has been purchased in 7,000 gallon orders [four] times this fiscal year," he continued. "The prices started the year at $3.37 and have declined steadily to $2.66 with the last purchase in November."
"We have been clearly benefiting from the drop in prices," DeHority explained.
Harford County Public Schools has used 30,763 gallons of unleaded fuel and 359,022 gallons of diesel since Jan. 1 for school buses and vehicles only, not contractor buses, spokeswoman Jillian Lader said.
The school system is part of the Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee, which requires it to buy a certain amount of fuel through the co-op at a set rate of $2.62 per gallon for unleaded gas and $2.99 per gallon for diesel, she said.
According to the school system, students are transported in 113 buses owned by HCPS and 384 owned by private contractors, who are responsible for their own fuel.
For contractor buses, "gas is predicated on AAA, self-service and rates that are adjusted weekly," Lader said.