Its interesting to watch old models coming to the end of their useful lives: County to pool resources to purchase fuel, save towns money.
A year ago, we all thought $2.70 for a gallon of gasoline was expensive. Now, that seems cheap.
Plymouth County wants to help.
With the resources of 26 towns and one city, the county packs a lot of purchasing power. Monday, the County Commissioners announced a bid process to bulk purchase gasoline and diesel fuel for the communities they serve.
The county can pool the resources of the towns, and itself, to get lower fuel rates than any one municipality or agency could on its own.
“With gas and diesel prices crunching municipal budgets, offering a bid that can reduce costs for our communities is something the county can do to help,” Commission Chairman Jeffrey Welch, of Abington, said.
[...] With a town that covers 104 square miles, Plymouth faces it’s own energy crisis. The price of diesel fuel has increased two dollars a gallon since the budget for fiscal 2008 was accepted by Town Meeting in the spring of 2007.
Plymouth consolidated its fuel purchases 18 months ago, and has saved money, though the actual figures weren’t readily available.
This uses a now-failing idea that those who want to buy in bulk make for lower supply costs so the savings can be split between supplier and customer. In a supply-constrained world however, those who want to buy more will become the problem clients, to get the discounts you will need to be able to sell back parts of your contract to your supplier.
Those with long-term supply contracts will offer to reduce their buy and to share in the benefits by their supplier being able to resell the difference at the current market value and splitting the extra profit.
The conservation message has always been "Reduce, re-use, recycle" in that order. The mantra has moved from ethical nicety to something even an accountant could love.
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