Gas prices up and down — all over the place

Leroy Guara, Jimmy Edge and Donald Warren work to off-load unleaed gasoline Friday afternoon at the Allsups convenience store on Arnold Street in Gallup. Guara stated that this store needs regular deliveries due to having low prices, which dropped to $2.76 per gallon on Friday. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

Gasoline prices for the average consumer are lower at many stations in Grants and Gallup than the average in New Mexico, and are more in line with the national average, released by AAA New Mexico Friday.

In Grants, regular unleaded at several stations is between $2.85 and $2.94. Some stations in Gallup are also as low as $2.76, and a gas war has existed between competitors in this city for the past year, said Ruben Baca, state executive with the New Mexico Petroleum Marketers Association.

Reached at Santa Fe Friday afternoon, while attending legislative sessions to monitor bills that may affect gasoline rules, regulations or prices, Baca said many of the Gallup stations buy “unbranded gas,” which is often 10-15 cents lower than “branded gas.”

“Branded gasoline” is from companies such as Conoco, Shell or Chevron.

“The main difference is that branded gasoline often has a special additive that each company puts into it,” Baca said. But the gasoline is basically all the same.

“The refining process is the same, and it all comes from the same pipeline,” he said. In New Mexico, the statewide average for regular unleaded gasoline is $2.973, which is 2.2 cents more than the national average, said Jeannie Chavez, spokeswoman for AAA New Mexico.

Why is New Mexico higher? Neither Baca nor Chavez could answer that question.

“Ask the refineries,” Baca said.

Higher prices are also a mystery in light of the fact that gasoline inventories in the United States are at a 14-year high.

Supply and Demand
“Demand drives prices,” Chavez said.

With less demand this time of year, the prices have not risen as they might have, had drivers put more lead into their feet while driving.

That does not mean prices will stay at this level for long, however. With spring break and Easter week nearly upon colleges, universities, school districts and families, an increase in gas prices is usual. With summer only four months away, driving increases dramatically and prices go up.

Why prices have not come down close to what they were a year ago, which was 76.9 cents less, according to AAA, is also a mystery. Chavez said no one knows the answer to that question.

The reason gasoline inventories are at a high is more easily answered, as Chavez said AAA’s national offices have reported that there “seems to be a trend in less driving in the past few months.”

Reuters news service is reporting that gas could drop as much as 50 cents before summer, which is directly he opposite of what AAA is saying.

Forecasting, predicting, projections, call it what you want, but determining which way gasoline prices will go in the near future seems to be more of an art than a science.

Sheryl Mesger, 54, of Garden Grove, Calif., who was getting gas at a station in Grants Friday, said she was returning to California after visiting her father in St. Louis, who was recovering from a recent surgery.

“Gas prices are all over the place,” she said. “I learned a long time ago, while traveling, to just drive a little farther into a town when I needed gas, so I could save money.”

Typically, gas stations along an Interstate highway are more expensive at the pump.