EVERETT – On a day when the price of gasoline hit new highs in 20 states, Derrick Fesinmeyer grumbled at a Shell station in Everett about paying nearly $3.50 a gallon for fuel.
“I think there’s some gouging going on, and the gas taxes in this state are absolutely outrageous,” Fesinmeyer said Monday after filling a gas can for his lawnmower. Total cost for 1.4 gallons: $5. “It’s an ugly scene, and I’m not happy with it.”
It’s hard to be happy about filling the gas tank when $50 will buy fewer than 15 gallons, even at the “bargain” stations.
That’s what Brian McDermott bought for his Ford pickup at the Arco station on Broadway in Everett. In the back window of the truck hung a sign with a stick figure in a compromising position with a fuel hose. He pointed to that when asked about his feelings on the cost of gasoline.
“It’s ridiculous,” said McDermott, a retiree who raises horses and other animals on Ebey Island. “Especially when the oil companies are making incredible profits. I can’t believe they let them get away with it.”
After fuel prices took a brief dip last week, the average price for regular unleaded set another record in Washington on Monday at $3.44, according to AAA. In the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area, the average was nearly $3.47, also a near record for the area.
Monday brought new highs in other states stretching from Ohio to Idaho, and the national average hit a new high of $3.07. Tom Kloza, senior analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, said high prices clearly aren’t confined just to the West Coast anymore.
“The most noticeable increases in May have been in the heartland – whether we’re talking Rocky Mountain states, Great Plains states, or Great Lakes states,” he wrote Monday, blaming lingering problems with large refineries serving those regions.
He added that between the high prices and still-strong demand for fuel, Americans were likely on Monday to spend more than $1.2 billion on gasoline. That’s only happened two other days in history, both last summer.
For the record, Kloza thinks this spring’s rally in fuel prices is nearly at an end. But he and other analysts have predicted that in the weeks before now, to no avail.
And there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about chances for short-term relief at the pump.
After initially predicting most of the nation would see cheaper prices than last summer, the Energy Information Administration’s revised forecast last week predicted the national average price will stay at or near $3 a gallon for most of the summer.
Analysts largely pin the blame on the temporary shutdown of several oil refineries, strong demand for fuel both in the United States and abroad and on violence in several oil-producing nations in the Middle East and Africa.
AAA hasn’t issued its travel forecast for Memorial Day weekend, considered the unofficial kickoff for the summer driving season. But spokeswoman Janet Ray said she hasn’t seen much evidence that higher gas prices are severely curtailing travel plans.
Some people are thinking more about their driving habits, however. Fesinmeyer said he bought a $600 “beater” Nissan Sentra, which he drives more often when gas is above $3 a gallon. McDermott, who used to run a gas station in Skagit County, said he just had his bicycle tuned up.
Reasons exist for hope that gas prices won’t stay in the $3.40 to $3.60 range for too much longer. In California, home of the nation’s most expensive gasoline, prices have dropped a penny or two in the past week. At the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday, gasoline futures closed down 2 percent as traders feared high prices would decrease demand.
Ray said she’s given up trying to guess where prices will go next, however.
“It’s virtually impossible to predict minor swings,” she said. “Most analysts, when they looked back in March, thought prices would be easing by now.”
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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