These days it can be expensive to get to where you need to go.
The evidence is in the rising gas prices across the region.
“They’re rising a little too much to be comfortable with for a college student," one driver shared at the pump. "Especially one that drives three hours to get home.”
Gas analysts said Washington drivers should be prepared to potentially spend a bit more at the pump over the next few days.
GasBuddy’s Patick De Hann said the reason for the increase starts in southern California.
"For the last several weeks, we've been watching a refinery situation in Southern California that has been pretty significant," De Hann said. "Both doing plan maintenance, that's usually something that happens after the summer when demand for gasoline starts to fall, several refineries in southern California doing maintenance at the same time. We've also seen some unexpected outages, those issues can range from equipment failures to power failures."
De Hann said the culmination of simultaneous maintenance and unexpected outages are causing an increase in the wholesale price of gas.
"Because the problem is so significant in Southern California, it's also inducing problems in markets that are nearby including northern California and the Pacific Northwest, Washington state and Oregon,” De Hann said.
He explains the further away from the issue, the less significant the impacts.
"The refineries in those other areas that are not necessarily in the epicenter of the outages, can supply and push their gasoline down to the affected market, which would then have kind of a domino effect that supply then could be constrained in those markets," De Hann said. “In Spokane and Eastern Washington, the increase is even south into Northeastern Oregon, the increases should be relatively tame, but increases nonetheless.”
He estimates Spokane will see a $0.10 to $0.15 increase over the next week.
Still, De Hann said there’s good news for Washington drivers once winter rolls around.
“I would think that by the end of the year that at least in Spokane, which is a little bit more isolated than some other is prices should drop down to the low to mid fours,” De Hann said.
De Hann said geography can effect west coast gas prices.
"The west coast is somewhat isolated because of the nature of the Rockies," De Hann said. "There aren't a whole lot of pipelines that criss-cross across the country. So the west coast is somewhat cut off from the rest of the country. Right now, it's one of those instances where it's not a good thing, because gasoline could flow from refineries outside the area, have no pipelines to be able to help bring in more supply."
According to AAA, average gas prices in Washington went up $0.10 in the last week from a $5.03 to $5.13.
Spokane’s regular gas per gallon average sits at $4.92, a reported increase of $0.14 in the last week.
June 2023, gas prices in Washington were the highest in the entire country.
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