Greetings, Mr. Debt_Investor,

Thank you for so generously shared your excellent observations, we are all indebted to you now.

Other than the non-fuel margin that was pointed out already I am totally with you. However, I might add a couple of things for your consideration. One, after Flying J's bankruptcy the competitions are not likely to wage a price war anytime soon, so fuel margin may well stay above $60 million per quarter. Two, Petro stores traditionally had much smaller non-fuel revenue, more like a third of TA stores. There may be room for improvements down the road.
TA is laboring under a heavy rent that was set when things were all rosy. That, and its structural problem may keep it under pressure for a long, long time.

The US consumption of fuel oil--of which diesel is a part--had a brief (14 months) dip after 1974 recession. The real wringer started in 1979 and ended in 1983. During that period, the consumption dropped 22% from peak to trough. That, of course, was induced by the Paul Volker's tight monetary policy and the shockingly high oil price. We, at present, have a rather easy monetary policy and consumption were already down for 22 months to about 18% below the recent peak. Though this time we started from an above norm consumption, I would think we are near the bottom.

For 3Q, I am hoping for $61 million in fuel margin and slightly higher non-fuel sales, but I am not sure we'll break even.

The threat may well come from railroads which may cut deeply into long-haul, but that's a subject for a later day.

Best,
Sam