EFIN Monthly Marine Fuel Prices

Fuel docks at selected ports on the West Coast and in Alaska will be surveyed monthly to create a marine fuel price index.

Originally, ports were selected through discussions with ADF&G and NPFMC staff.  The selected ports were chosen to include ports with significant revenue generation and which were broadly geographically representative of commercial fishing ports in Alaska.

Alaska Fuel Prices: Date of Collection

Fuel prices will be collected the first Tuesday of each month, given the following contingencies.

• If the first Tuesday of a month is a holiday, prices will be collected the following Thursday. For instance, July 4, 1999 is a Tuesday. Price data for July 1999 will be collected on Thursday, July 6, 1999. The date that data are collected will be stored with the data.
• If the fuel dock being surveyed does not answer their phone on the first Tuesday of the month for any reason, the person surveying the fuel docks will try to reach the dock in question one more time during that day and three times on the following Thursday (or until the dock is reached). If the dock could not be reached during these attempts, a missing value will appear in the data for that dock.
• If there is some other circumstance that prevents the person conducting the survey of fuel prices from being able to do so on the first Tuesday of the month, fuel prices will be collected on the next business day.

Alaska Fuel Prices: Fuel Docks

At least one fuel dock in each selected port will be surveyed. Each fuel dock can be uniquely identified by its "Fuel Dock Identifier". This identifier was formed by using the 3 letter AKFIN port code for the port in which the dock is located followed by a sequential number. (For example, KTN2 identifies the second fuel dock surveyed in Ketchican, AK.) A fuel dock's identifier will remain unique to that dock throughout the collection of this data to allow a single dock to be identified over time.

Fuel docks were selected on the following basis:

1. if a fuel dock was listed in the "Port Guide" appearing in the 1998 National Fisherman's Journal Pilothouse Guide and Yellow Pages, that dock is included.
2. if a fuel dock was not located through the first method for a given port, the US West Dex Internet Yellow Pages were used to locate a fuel dock at that port.
3. In some cases, the Port Office is called in lieu of a fuel dockand some suppliers have been added to increase coverage in certain areas as their contact information has become available.

Changes Since Inception for Alaska

• Adak, Naknek, Dillingham, Yakutat and Wrangell were added in 2001.

Alaska Fuel Prices: Price Data Collected

The data to be collected are the cash price before tax (where applicable) of 600 gallons of #2 marine diesel.

Alaska Fuel Prices: Data Availability

Fuel price data will be available by state or in a combined West Coast/Alaska file.

These data will be entered made available on this website in SPSS and ASCII formats by the second Tuesday of each month.

Alaska Fuel Prices: Data File Structure and Variable Formats

West Coast Fuel Prices: California

West Coast Fuel Prices: Oregon

West Coast Fuel Prices: Washington

West Coast Fuel Prices: Overview

West Coast Fuel Prices: Port Selection Method

Ports were selected if::

• The port meets at least one of the following:

  was included in the NMFS SW Region's collection of fuel prices which was suspended in 1994;

  or was one of the top 25 revenue generating ports^* on the West Coast in 1997;

  or was one of the top 10 revenue generating ports^* in the state in 1997;

• and has a fuel dock
• and is identified by as a single port in the PacFIN port codes (as opposed to a group of ports; e.g., OSF - Other San Francisco Ports)
• some suppliers have been added to increase coverage in certain areas as their contact information has become available.

^* Revenue generation figures are based upon revenue data associated with all species from PacFIN on 30 Dec 98.

West Coast Fuel Prices: Selected Ports

The following ports were selected:

West Coast Fuel Prices: Date of Collection

Fuel prices will be collected the first Tuesday of each month, given the following contingencies.

• If the first Tuesday of a month is a holiday, prices will be collected the following Thursday. For instance, if the 4th of July were a Tuesday. Price data for July will be collected on Thursday, July 6. The date that data are collected will be stored with the data.
• If the fuel dock being surveyed does not answer their phone on the first Tuesday of the month for any reason, the person surveying the fuel docks will try to reach the dock in question one more time during that day and three times by the following Thursday (or until the dock is reached). If the dock could not be reached during these attempts, a missing value will appear in the data for that dock.

West Coast Fuel Prices: Fuel Docks

At least one fuel dock in each selected port will be surveyed. Each fuel dock can be uniquely identified by its "Fuel Dock Identifier". This identifier was formed by using the 3 letter PacFIN port code for the port in which the dock is located followed by a sequential number. (For example, SEA4 identifies the fourth fuel dock surveyed in Seattle, WA.) A fuel dock's identifier will remain unique to that dock throughout the collection of this data to allow a single dock to be identified over time.

Fuel docks were selected on the following basis:

1. If a fuel dock was included in NMFS SW Region's fuel price collection and that dock's phone number is still operational, that dock is included.
2. If a fuel dock was listed in the "Port Guide" appearing in the 1998 National Fisherman's Journal Pilothouse Guide and Yellow Pages, that dock is included.
3. If a fuel dock was not located through either of the first two methods for a given port, the US West Dex Internet Yellow Pages were used to locate a fuel dock at that port.
4. In some cases, the Port Office is called in lieu of a fuel dock, per se.
5. If, over the course of the data collection, a fuel dock is discovered to be somehow inappropriate for this collection (e.g., the dock is a subsidiary of another dock surveyed) the inappropriate fuel dock will be excluded from further data collections.
6. If, over the course of the data collection, a new fuel dock is identified as a more appropriate fuel dock than the one currently being surveyed, the new dock will replace the old dock in future collections. However, the new fuel dock will be assigned a new fuel dock identifier.
7. If, over the course of the data collection, a new fuel dock is identified as being a useful contributor to this collection, the fuel dock will receive a new fuel dock identifier and be added to future data collections.

West Coast Fuel Prices: Price Data Collected

The data to be collected are the cash price before tax (where applicable) of 600 gallons of #2 marine diesel.

If the before tax price is not available, (i.e., the fuel dock cannot/will not provide before tax price,) the pre-tax price will be calculated and a note will be made in the "notes" column.

West Coast Fuel Prices: Data Availability

Fuel price data will be available by state or in a combined West Coast/Alaska file.

These data will be entered made available on the EFIN website in SPSS and ASCII formats by the second Tuesday of each month, but no earlier than the first Thursday of the month.

West Coast Fuel Prices: Data File Structure and Variable Formats

West Coast fuel price data are available in 2 formats: as a MS Excel file and as an ASCII fixed width file. Each file contains the following variables:

Variable	Type	Width	Variable Title	Data Values/Notes
Year	Numeric	4.0	Year of fuel price collection	-
Month	Numeric	2.0	Month of fuel price collection	1=January, 2=February, etc.
Day	Numeric	2.0	Date of fuel price collection	-
Port	Character	3	PacFIN port code	Click here for more info on PacFIN
PortName	Character	30	Name of port	-
State	Character	2	State in which port is located	2-letter US Postal Service official abbreviation
DockCode	Character	4	Fuel dock identifier	Click here for more info on fuel dock identifiers
Pricettl	Dollar	10.2	Total cash price before tax of 600 gallons of #2 marine diesel in current US dollars	Pricettl=$0.00 indicates that a total price was unavailable for this fuel dock $0.00 set to user missing value in SPSS data file
Pricegal	Dollar	6.6	Cash price per gallon before tax of 600 gallons of #2 marine diesel in current US dollars	Pricegal=$0.000 indicates that a total price was unavailable for this fuel dock $0.000 set to user missing value in SPSS data file
PxQuoted	Numeric	1.0	Which price was quoted	0 = No Price Quoted - See Notes 1 = Price per Gallon Quoted 2 = Total Price Quoted 3 = Both Prices Quoted
Notes	Character	50	Any notes related to anomalies, exceptions, caveats, etc associated with the data in the record	-

Reports Available

Other Fuel Surveys