Fill ’er up soon
Highest in 50 days, AAA says
Labor Day means gas prices are climbing again.
An approaching holiday, the threat of tropical weather, and “refinery issues”? You know what that means for gas prices. Up and up and up they go and where they’ll stop, no one knows.
Florida motorists going to the pump will find the highest prices in more than 50 days, travel club AAA said. On Sunday, the average price hit $2.23, a result of 11 straight days of price increases, and remained the same on Monday.
We can expect more volatility heading toward Labor Day, particularly as tropical systems churn and brew offshore, AAA said.
“Gas prices are responding to upward pressure from higher oil prices, refinery issues, and the threat of tropical weather moving into the Gulf of Mexico,” AAA spokesman Mark Jenkins said in a news release. “Fuel prices are likely to remain relatively volatile this week, but that’s unlikely to be a major deterrent for travelers heading into LaborDayweekend.”
Whether Labor Day weekend prices will overtake last year’s prices remains to be seen, AAA said. Last year, a gallon of regular unleaded averaged $2.29 in Florida. Should this year’s prices remain below that, they would be the lowest Labor Day gas prices since 2004.
Higher crude oil prices and a variety of refinery production problems along the Gulf Coast, where most of the nation’s gasoline is produced, are the main culprits for the current uptick in prices at the pump, AAA said. Crude oil prices are 16
percent higher than three weeks ago, and the wholesale price of gasoline climbed 5 cents last last week amid concerns that a low pressure tropical system south of Florida would enter the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane.
That concern proved unfounded, but the week began with that system moving into the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical depression but expected to strengthen into a tropical storm and loop back toward Florida.
In South Florida, meanwhile, where higher taxes always keep prices higher than the rest of the state, Broward County motorists were paying an average $2.29, Miami-Dade drivers were paying $2.31, and Palm Beach County drivers were coughing up an average $3.51.
A check of the website GasBuddy.com shows a few gas stations in the tricounty area remained below the state average. In Palm Beach County, the lowest price was $2.13 at a Sunoco station on Hypoluxo Road in LakeWorth. In Broward, the cheapest non-wholesale club price was $2.09 at Mobil on Southeast Fifth Court in Pompano Beach.