"I don't think the station I was driving by had one delivery between 08:00 and 10:00 yesterday, another delivery between 10:00 and 2:00, and yet another delivery between 2:00 p.m. yesterday and 07:30 this morning. It's a busy station, but it's not three deliveries within 24 hours busy."
Agreed.
But that still says absolutely nothing about the station's management/ownership structure.
Are they part of a regional group, a small independent, a national franchise?
Were the prices going up out of synch with other stations in the area?
For example, during the 9-11 attacks there were verified reports of gas stations around the country suddenly raising prices by as much as 5 DOLLARS a gallon. IIRC, for the most part every one of those instances was an individual manager seeing the news and trying to capitalize, and virtually none of them were part of a distributor plot.
That's gouging.
What you're seeing?
You're seeing an interesting little exercise called (IIRC) Capitalized Replacement Price.
Sure, the gasoline in the ground has been paid for, but with wholesale prices rising by 10 cents a gallon or more a day, and when your profit margin on a gallon of gasoline is often less than 1% per gallon, you need to think about whether you can actually afford to replace the gasoline that's now in the ground.
That's why you're seeing prices rise.
In short, I guess boils down to this...
Everyone things capitalism is wonderful.
Until capitalism actually starts acting like capitalism acts.
Then they all become screaming market interventionist commies.