Gas prices surge as Harvey flooding threatens pipelines

Atlanta, Athens ($2.52) and Albany ($2.44) are where gas prices are highest, while Macon ($2.37) and August ($2.39) are Georgia’s lowest. Prices have jumped nearly 20 cents since the storm made landfall one week ago; the national average now sits at $2.52 – the highest average price in at least two years. “We expect the national average to top $2.60 a gallon”.

As of Friday morning, AAA says Connecticut’s average for a gallon of regular is $2.60.

Casselano said the shut downs don’t indicate a shortage of gasoline supplies.

“The hurricane did what terrorists could only dream of and take a third of USA refinery capacity off line for days on end”, said Michael E. Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, the largest US refinery, could be down for a month, Lipow said.

Gas prices historically spike over Labor Day weekend when vacations are common and renters move into new housing.

In Canada, prices are also affected by a lack of competition among gasoline wholesalers and taxes, according to McTeague.

Benchmark U.S. gasoline prices slid for the first day since Hurricane Harvey struck the U.S. oil industry heartland, as some refineries restarted operations, while oil prices remained under pressure and settled about flat. As a result, crude oil prices actually fell this week, as refinery closures reduced demand, dropping prices Friday to $47 per barrel. Hurricane Sandy prompted the creation of the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve in 2014, which stores 1 million barrels of gasoline in several commercial storage terminals in three northeast states. The East Coast in particular is largely dependent on pipeline shipments of transportation fuels from the Gulf Coast.

States likely to see the largest price increases are Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, AAA said.

The transportation issue was underlined Thursday, when the U.S. Energy Department announced that it would release a total of 1 million barrels of crude to Phillips 66’s Lake Charles, La., refinery in an effort to ease gasoline supply shortages. It has to do with where we get our gas, and yes, your behavior.

Although this news is somewhat concerning, the US Energy Information Administration is now reporting a nationwide supply of 230 million barrels, the highest level in five years, and enough to meet demand in the near term.

Summer blends are more expensive to produce, thus switching over now to winter blends should help ease price increases at the pump.