CLACKAMAS, Ore. -- Fred Meyer plans to open its first gasoline station in the Portland, Ore., area, says The Oregonian. Oregon has many gasoline stations located at or adjacent to shopping centers, the report says, but until last year, none was owned by a supermarket chain or other big-box retailer. Since then, Fred Meyer, Safeway, Albertson’s and Costco have entered the fuel competition and gradually are adding stations.

Fred Meyer has a gasoline station in Tillamook. Safeway opened its first gasoline station in the state in Roseburg last November, and it now has six units, including one in Molalla. Albertson’s joined the local competition in Portland a year ago and plans 600 fuel stations in the states where it does business.

Clay Glasgow, a Clackamas County planner, said the Fred Meyer station will be the first owned by a large chain store in an unincorporated area of the county. “I know we’ll get others,” Glasgow said. “Safeway planned to put one in Damascus, but it was denied because of a wetlands issue. I assume they will redesign and come back” with a new application.

Fred Meyer expects to apply for a building permit for the Portland unit in a month or more, spokesperson Rob Boley said. “Getting the permit could take many months, so we don’t have a construction schedule yet.”

Boley told the newspaper that the retail chain went into pumping gas and diesel fuel because “it gives people an opportunity to take care of one more chore when they stop at our store.”

The first Fred Meyer station opened in Fairbanks, Alaska, in July 2000. The company has seven open and six under construction in the Northwest and Alaska. Most Fred Meyer stores eventually will sell fuel, Boley said. “We buy from various suppliers. All are major refineries.”

Brian Doherty, a Portland attorney, is a lobbyist for Western States Petroleum Association, which includes some of the major-brand gasoline producers and retailers. When supermarket stations offer lower prices, the suppliers can provide lower prices or higher volumes to the branded gasoline stations, he said. For example, stations might pay less for fuel if a nearby Fred Meyer outlet cut prices by several cents, he said. However, Fred Meyer and other unbranded retailers can’t cut prices and make a profit when there isn’t a gasoline surplus, said Bob Stein, president of Gladstone-based Stein Oil, which operates seven major-brand stations. Currently, there is no surplus in Oregon, he said.

Overall, the new breed of stations “do have an effect” on local competition wherever they operate, Stein said. “I talked today with a Grants Pass dealer with competition from two or three of the big box stations, and he’s feeling it.”