{"id":48106,"date":"2021-03-09T01:35:59","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T08:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-is-driving-higher-prices-at-the-pump\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:41:49","slug":"what-is-driving-higher-prices-at-the-pump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-is-driving-higher-prices-at-the-pump\/","title":{"rendered":"What is driving higher prices at the pump?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The frigid February weather in Texas and Louisiana and increasing travel as a COVID-19 vaccine becomes more available are behind rising gasoline prices.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A concoction of ingredients are behind a cocktail of increasing gasoline prices, and the higher prices at the pump are not expected to ease anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Skylar McKinney, AAA regional director of public affairs, said the main reason behind the pain consumers are feeling at the pump is rising crude oil prices.<\/p>\n

Other factors \u2013 the unusual cold snap in the states along the Gulf of Mexico and an anticipated rise in summer travel with wider distribution of the COVID-19 vaccination \u2013 are also behind rising prices, McKinney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bet here is that they\u2019re going to continue rising for the foreseeable future,\u201d he said. \u201cThe era of extremely cheap gas prices are going to be behind us for a little while, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crude oil was trading slightly above $66 a barrel Friday, the highest price in more than two years. The price had dropped to $65.08 on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe OPEC countries plus Russia and a few others, they have not increased production. They\u2019re going to do just a very, very, very slight increase in April,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they are making the choice to drive prices up after what has been a rougher year for the oil-producing countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, OPEC countries decided to extend an oil production cut for another month despite a resurgence in global demand as economies recover from COVID-19, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely frustrating as a consumer to feel helpless as prices soar and as millions remain unemployed, so the only advice I can offer consumers is prepare for further increases, and to mitigate rising prices,\u201d De Haan said in a news release. \u201cShop around for the low prices every time you need to refuel.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, gas prices had risen to as high as $2.95 for a gallon of regular unleaded at Marathon and some Speedway gas stations in Durango. A gallon of regular unleaded was selling for $2.75 at Peerless.<\/p>\n

A big jump in gas prices came right after the mid-February freeze that hit Texas and Louisiana. The storm shut down many refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n

The largest refineries in North America were shutting down because of arctic conditions that cut electricity, water and fuel supplies across Texas. More than 3 million barrels of daily oil-processing capacity were taken down in the wake of the record-setting cold, according to consultant Energy Aspects Ltd.<\/p>\n

The storm hit also as rising demand across the country began to be felt with COVID-19 vaccine distribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing demand rise. That\u2019s great. It usually is a sign of a recovering economy, especially in light of a pandemic,\u201d McKinney said. \u201cMany more people are driving, and as more people become comfortable flying, that\u2019s going to increase demand for crude oil, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another factor driving up prices is the uncertainty surrounding President Joe Biden\u2019s policy toward oil drilling, McKinney said.<\/p>\n

In January, the Biden administration issued an executive order suspending new oil and gas leasing on federal land, and during the campaign Biden pledged to stop drilling on federal lands and offshore.<\/p>\n

The consulting firm Rystad Energy says a de facto ban on new leasing on federal land is now reality, but that the oil industry has also insulated itself from immediate impact.<\/p>\n

Oil companies used the final months of the Trump administration to stock up on permits. Federal permitting in New Mexico \u2013 a hotbed of Permian Basin drilling on federal land \u2013 more than tripled from 2017 to 2020, according to Rystad Energy.<\/p>\n

McKinney said: \u201cThere is a moratorium on issuance of new permits, it gets covered a lot, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s been a big driver of the price increase. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be a shutdown of drilling or fracking. There might be more a promotion of alternative fuels, but the uncertainty is about policy is what\u2019s new, and that would be true of any new administration, regardless of party early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination of factors is likely to push the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in Colorado to $3 a gallon by summer, McKinney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that we\u2019re going to see prices rise. A national average of about $3 sounds about right to me. We haven\u2019t seen that in about three years, since May 2018,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to see $3.50 a gallon. We probably won\u2019t even see $3.25 in most of Colorado, but places like Telluride, Aspen and Vail and other resort communities might be the exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

expects fuel costs to increase through summer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4093,28,29,1450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-consumer-issue","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-prices"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87307,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48106\/revisions\/87307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48106"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}