Gas price increase becoming the trend
Some people shop coupons and others feel it isn’t worth the while to save a few nickels. However, when shopping for gas everybody is looking for the best price.
In the last week the average retail gasoline prices in Louisiana rose 16.9 cents per gallon, averaging $3.55/g as of Monday, according to Gas Buddy’s daily survey of 2,436 gas outlets in Louisiana. This compares with the national average that has increased 11.9 cents per gallon in the last week to $3.68/g, according to gasoline price website GasBuddy.com.
In Donaldsonville, gas stations’ prices such as Popingo’s and Wal-Mart rose over ten cents in that week. Donaldsonville native Marjorie Gaines said as far as she can see the prices are going up and it makes it “hard on poor people.”
“Everybody isn’t rich,” Gaines said who works as a motor vehicle officer in Gonzales.
Being the owner of three vehicles, one car, one SUV and one truck, Gaines said she spends about $175 to $200 dollars a week in gas.
“It was going down and I thought it was going to keep going down,” Gaines said. “Next thing I look, it’s going up. It looks like we are going to be paying $5 before it’s over with if something doesn’t break.”
Including the change in gas prices in Louisiana during the past week, prices yesterday were 8.0 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and are 36.1 cents per gallon higher than a month ago. The national average has increased 42.2 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 16.7 cents per gallon higher than this day one year ago.
While the gas price increase is becoming a burden to Gaines, Michael Charles said when he’s in a hurry he doesn’t even look at the price.
“Sometimes when I’m in a rush like today I’m in a rush trying to go fishing, so it doesn’t matter,” Charles said about not noticing the gas price before filling up his pickup truck and boat.
“Other days I definitely look at the price, but I would not go far out of my way to get 10 or 15 cents,” Charles said. “It just doesn’t make that much of a difference to me.”
Charles is from Donaldsonville originally and now lives in Baton Rouge now. For him though he has a car that fills up at 19 gallons and his daily commute to work at CF Industries only cost him about $60 a week, depending on the gas price he said. But, Charles still hopes the prices go back to “what was normal.”
“Normal ought to be around $2,” Charles said. “If it got down to $2 I think the gas companies still make profit and then everybody else is fine. This $3 and up is inflated and we all know it’s inflated.”
“What’s happened though is they’ve brought us to the new norm. Which is when it gets to $3 now, we’re thinking that’s a great price and it’s really not. But it’s better than $4,” Charles said.
"The steady climb of retail gas prices is likely to continue following double-digit increases in wholesale prices with fuel production tightening in the majority of the country's refineries," said GasBuddy.com Senior Petroleum Analyst Gregg Laskoski. "Los Angeles has climbed to $4.28 per gallon with a 55-cent average price increase in the past month, and that rate was surpassed in Chicago ($4.09 average price) and Detroit ($3.86 per gallon average), where motorists saw 63- and 64-cent respective increases over the same period. New York crossed the $4 threshold too."