Wyoming Gas Prices Are Surging Once Again
For the tenth consecutive week, the price of gasoline has is on the rise across the country. The national average has increased another 5.9 cents per gallon to a nationwide average of $2.86 per gallon. In Wyoming, despite being consistently below the national average, we're quickly climbing towards it.
It's not as if any of us are wanting to get in the car and drive anywhere right now given the brutal snowstorm that just hit us, but in the past week, Wyoming gas prices are up an average of 10.2 cents per gallon in the past week which brings the state average gas price to $2.80 per gallon. That is 46.1 cents per gallon higher than it was a month ago, along with 46.6 cents higher per gallon than gas was a year ago. That being said, demand at that time was nowhere near what it currently is.
According to recent reports from GasBuddy, the cheapest gas in Wyoming is listed at $2.60 per gallon while the highest is $2.99 per gallon.
The head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, Patrick De Haan recently provided some insight as to why we are seeing the pattern in gas prices as they are now:
As Americans turn optimistic on COVID-19 recovery, we’ve been seeing insatiable demand for gasoline, which continues to recover far faster than oil production...The recovery in the last few weeks has been astounding- both the speed and overall volume increases we’ve seen in our data lend credibility to the recovery, and perhaps will lead to continued price increases due to the continued imbalance between supply and demand. It’s no longer a question of if we’ll see gasoline demand return to near normal this year but when, and will oil producers rise to the occasion and be able to quickly ramp up output, or are we going to see the highest summer prices since 2014 until they jump into action? Only time will tell, but it’s looking like things are heating up far more than expected since the start of the year.
As for the highest gas price increase in the past week, it wasn't Wyoming's 10 cents per gallon, but instead was in states such as Utah, which saw an 18 cent per gallon spike, and Idaho, which had an increase of 13 cents per gallon.
In the meantime, we're pretty much all snowed in for the time being, so we're not exactly spending all that we can at the pump anyway. Stay safe and stay warm, Wyoming.