HALIFAX - Nova Scotia's gasoline regulator, the Utility and Review Board, rejected earlier this week complaints from rural Nova Scotia gas station operators that their businesses were damaged by larger store promotions that offered gasoline discounts, Oilweek reports.

The Board concluded that the promotions did not impact the availability of fuel in rural areas and as a result should be permissible.

Rural fuel marketers had argued that Sobeys, Nova Scotia's largest food retailer, had enabled Irving Oil, the province's largest gasoline retailer, to gain an unfair, competitive advantage by discounting gasoline in return for purchasing groceries.

But the Board concluded that location is the overriding factor for consumers when purchasing gasoline, and it therefore found no evidence that the promotion affected the viability of rural retailers.

"Promotions by themselves are not enough to substantially change purchasing patterns," the Board said. "Independent stations in remote areas appear to be largely immune to the effect of promotions."

The Board said that promotions should limit gasoline purchases to 100 liters of gasoline and that provincial regulations regarding promotions should be clarified.

The Retail Gas Dealers Association of Nova Scotia (RGDANS) expressed concern at the way Sobeys and Irving Oil offer discounts.

"It's this new generation of promotions that has had so much furor," said Graham Conrad, executive director of the RGDANS. "The promotion is so lucrative that we just don?t know what the full impact will be."

Under the promotion in question, Conrad said that motorists earn discounts up to nine cents per liter, nearly double the regulated retail margin, which is fixed at a maximum 5.5 cents per liter.

Nova Scotia began regulating fuel prices in 2006.