AAA map of gas prices in Colorado<\/a> showed gasoline ranged from $2.66 to $2.53 in La Plata County and $2.82 to $2.66 in Montezuma County.<\/p>\nAndrew Friedson, assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver, said that if Durango has greater demand for gasoline and the supply chain is the same in both towns, Durango should have higher gas prices.<\/p>\n
Friedson said he suspected supply differences explain why Durango sees lower gas prices.<\/p>\n
Durango has a greater number of stations and a greater number of companies competing in the gasoline market, Friedson said, and that\u2019s likely the biggest single supply factor keeping Durango prices lower.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you only have two companies competing in Cortez, it\u2019s going to be easier to keep prices higher,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Also, Durango\u2019s larger population may allow Durango stations to obtain lower prices per unit by ordering more gas. \u201cIt\u2019s like buying your food at 7\/11 versus buying at Costco,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Supply and demand differences between Durango and Cortez, McKinley said, would overcome any other variable that might lead one to think Cortez might be the lower-priced gas market.<\/p>\n
For instance, land costs, which are higher in Durango, McKinley said, would be only a small variable in determining the price of a gallon of gasoline.<\/p>\n
McKinley said other theories behind Cortez gasoline prices, such as operating losses, might have some effect, but he said it would be minor compared with basic supply and demand issues.<\/p>\n
Gasoline is a low-margin product, typically averaging about 15 cents per gallon profit, and McKinley estimated recovery of losses in shoplifting from a gas station\u2019s convenience store might add 1 cent to the cost of gasoline in Cortez.<\/p>\n
Last week, gas prices in Durango hit a low of 2.38, but they have gained 20 cents in the past week, which is typical of the bump in prices for the Labor Day weekend, McKinley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabor Day is the last high-demand weekend of the summer, and you typically don\u2019t see gas increases after the holiday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The good news, McKinley said, is he expects the price of gasoline to drop \u201cand drop quickly\u201d after Labor Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe winter blend is cheaper to make, and you\u2019re going to have fewer drivers on the road with the same number of gas stations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
parmijo @durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Economists say the answer is simple: supply and demand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6119,5738,5737,5736,5735,5741,6118],"tags":[4711,21,28,29,1450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-74151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commodity-markets","category-cortez","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-prices","tag-commodity-markets","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-prices"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74151","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=74151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92536,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74151\/revisions\/92536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74151"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=74151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}