Pumping Profits From Gas Sales Is Tough to Do.

Focuses on the price of gasoline at the pumps in the United States and its impact on gas stations' profit margins. Comments from Stan Sheetz, chief executive of the Sheetz convenience store chain, regarding his strategy to keep margins low on gas while keeping higher margins on products inside the store; Statistics indicating a reduction in margins for self-serve regular gasoline per gallon in the first quarter of 2005 relative to all of 2004, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the United States; Potential impact of the rising price of oil, which makes up more than half of the cost of gasoline, on mom-and-pop retailers of gas; Efforts of big oil companies to get out of the retail gasoline business, noting the sale of stations by Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch/Shell Group; Reduction the number of company-operated stations in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration; Comments from Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, a trade group that represents several thousand independent gasoline retailers, indicating the rate of return on gasoline is dropping; Difficulty in assessing the economics of selling gas.