LOS ANGELES (AP) — California gas prices will increase
for several more days before leveling off after a temporary reduction in
supply triggered a price spike that saw fuming motorists paying $5 or
more per gallon in some locations and station owners shutting down pumps
in others.
The Golden State leapfrogged Hawaii as the state with
the most expensive fuel. The average price for a gallon of regular
unleaded across California was nearly $4.49 on Friday, 32 cents more
than a week ago and the highest statewide average in the nation,
according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge report.
The national average
is about $3.79 a gallon, the highest ever for this time of year.
However, gas prices in many other states have started decreasing, which
is typical for October.
The dramatic surge came because of a power
outage Monday at a Southern California refinery reduced supply in an
already fragile and volatile market, analysts said, but the refinery
came back online Friday and prices were expected to stabilize by next
week.
Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com,
predicted the average price could peak as high as $4.85, surpassing the
June 2008 record of $4.61.
"There is some relief in sight but
probably not for a couple of days. Early next week is when we may see
some more significant declines … but at retail prices, prices may
climb for the next two to three days before they start to come down," he
said.
Rebecca Olson, 43, of Irvine, drove to a Costco in Tustin
on Friday hoping to find lower prices than the $4.65 in her
neighborhood, but the pumps were closed.
The part-time preschool
teacher said her husband already spends $500 a month on gas, in part
because he commutes nearly 100 miles a day to a new sales job after
being unemployed for a year.
"All of this is killing us, just because we’ve got big cars," she said.
They’ve
already parked their GMC Yukon SUV indefinitely. If gas prices keep
rising, Olson said they’ll sell her husband’s Infiniti G35 that requires
premium fuel and buy a more efficient car, while making their children
ride their bikes to their activities.
"Just last night, we were looking at economical cars, we were car
shopping," she said.
A
web of refinery and transmission problems is to blame, analysts said.
The situation is compounded by a pollution law that requires a special
blend of cleaner-burning gasoline from April to October, said Denton
Cinquegrana, executive editor of the Oil Price Information Service,
which helps AAA compile its price survey.
"We use the phrase ‘the
perfect storm,’ and you know what, this current one makes those other
perfect storms look like a drizzle. I don’t want to scare anyone, but
this is a big problem," Cinquegrana said. "Run-outs are happening left
and right."
Among the recent disruptions, an Aug. 6 fire at a
Chevron Corp. refinery in Richmond left one of the region’s largest
refineries producing at a reduced capacity, and a Chevron pipeline that
moves crude oil to Northern California also was shut down.
There was some good news.
Exxon
Mobil Corp. said a refinery in Torrance returned to normal operations
Friday after a power failure Monday disrupted production for most of the
week. State officials said with the refinery coming back online, prices
should start falling.
"The wholesale market appears to have
peaked and is heading down," said Alison apRoberts, a spokeswoman for
the California Energy Commission. "Because it takes a little while for
the price reductions to funnel through the system, consumers at the
pumps should start to see some declines over the next week."
Gasoline
inventories in California, however, are still at their lowest point in
more than 10 years, a situation made worse by the mandate for the
special summer gasoline blend. Few refineries outside the state can make
it, meaning there are few outside sources to draw from for help,
Cinquegrana said.
The California Air Resources Board was reviewing
a request from the California Independent Oil Marketers Association for
a waiver that would allow gas stations to begin selling winter-blend
gasoline before Halloween.
David Clegern, a spokesman for the air
board, said the California Energy Commission would have to review gas
inventories to confirm there is a shortage and assess what effect the
switch would have on air quality.
ApRoberts said Friday that the commission has determined that the state has plenty of
gasoline to meet consumer demand.
Gil Duran, a spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown, said in an email that his office is
"monitoring the situation closely."
While
prices were higher everywhere in the state, there were variances. Yuba
City had the lowest average price at $4.33, according to AAA, while San
Francisco was highest at $4.60. Prices averaged $4.54 in the Los Angeles
area, $4.52 in San Diego, $4.40 in Fresno and $4.36 in Sacramento.
A
station at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central Coast was selling
gas for $3.91, while the price was $5.69 at a station in Calabasas,
outside Los Angeles.
Some stations ran out of gas and shut down
rather than take the risk of buying gas at soaring prices only to be
stuck with a glut of overpriced fuel if prices dropped or if customers
refused to absorb the extra cost that would be passed along to them.
The
price of diesel fuel has also increased, adding significant costs for
truckers who typically put hundreds of dollars’ worth of gas in their
tanks. The average price for diesel statewide was $4.48 a gallon Friday —
35 cents more than a year ago, according to AAA.
At a truck stop
and gas station off state Route 99, on the outskirts of Fresno,
independent trucker Joel Vargas said if diesel hits $5 per gallon, he
will probably stop driving because he would be losing money.
"With that kind of price, I won’t be able to support myself and my family,"
he said.
Other residents were taking steps to cut their gas spending.
Victor
Parrott, of Irvine, lost his electrical engineering job at Boeing Co.
more than two years ago and was already accustomed to planning his
errands to maximize gas efficiency. Now, he said, he will have to cut
back even more after paying $4.69 a gallon Thursday — 74 cents more than
what he paid a week ago.
"It’s killing our pocketbook. You can’t
budget for it because you don’t know what it’s going to be," Parrott
said as he left a grocery store with his two toddlers. "You just have to
put in less. Instead of a half-tank, you put in a quarter-tank."
___
Contributing
to this report were AP writers Jonathan Fahey in New York, Sandy Shore
in Denver, Juliet Williams and Hannah Dreier in Sacramento, Jason Dearen
in San Francisco, Beth Harris in Burbank, and Gosia Wozniacka in
Fresno; and photographer Damian Dovarganes in Calabasas.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.