One national gas price tracker reported Thursday that pump prices dipped to a three-month low. Local dealers contacted weren’t all that impressed with the news.
The low prices may be short-lived, however. International events Thursday – Israel invading Gaza, a commercial plane being shot down over Ukraine – could cause the price of crude oil to increase.
The GasBuddy National Average fell Thursday to $3.583 per gallon, the lowest since April 8, when it was $3.580 per gallon.
The AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report showed a similar national figure on Thursday ($3.590 per gallon), down 7 cents from a month ago.
But the AAA report also showed Durango prices hadn’t budget a whole lot in the last month and actually had gone up 2 cents. The Thursday price for regular gas in Durango was $3.583 (exactly the same as GasBuddy’s national average), while it was at $3.561 a month ago.
“Some days we go up, and some days we go down,” said Sammy Denham, manager at Peerless Tyre, 1990 Main Ave.
Gas companies set their prices according to their distributor’s price. The bottom line for local gas stations, Denham said, is that “the profit is just not there anymore.”
The price for regular Thursday at Peerless was $3.559.
Charlie Brennan, whose family owns five Exxon-affiliated stations in the Durango area, said that unlike in decades past, when stations could go six months with the same price, now they “live day to day with prices.” Those prices started going down recently, but he speculated that events in Israel and Ukraine might push them back up.
The five stations that operate under Brennan Oil were selling regular for $3.589 on Thursday.
Darrell Proctor, a senior energy analyst with BENTEK Energy in Denver, said crude oil prices can change quickly. And the fact that the U.S. has ramped up its crude oil production in the last several years has less of an effect than the public might think.
“Geopolitical events can certainly affect the price of crude,” Proctor said. “U.S. production will temper but doesn’t eliminate (effects of international events) by any stretch.”
Pump prices are highest in New England and the West Coast, where they ranged Thursday from $3.728 to $4.341, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. They were lowest in the Midwest and South, where they are as little as $3.325 to $3.419 per gallon.
GasBuddy reported that the national price dropped in “baby steps” for 20 consecutive days through Thursday, a total of 9.7 cents per gallon in that time.
“GasBuddy analysts are expecting continued declines as retail prices catch up to losses at wholesale,” GasBuddy said in a news release Thursday.
johnp@durangoherald.com
