If you’re not already shopping around for the best gas prices in
town, it may be time to start.
Hollister – If you’re not already shopping around for the best gas prices in town, it may be time to start.
The average price of gas per gallon at 10 stations surveyed in Hollister Tuesday was $2.29. While this is slightly below the state average ($2.34 per gallon), it’s still much higher than the current national average, which is $1.97 according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). The high local prices aren’t lost on anyone.
Chris Bartunek, 18, a student at Gavilan College, said he may start cutting his expenses by downgrading from 89 octane to regular unleaded 87 octane gas for his Chevy truck.
“I try to fill it up with the 89, because I know the better the gas, the better it is for my truck. But it’s getting really steep,” he said as he filled his tank at the Safeway gas station on Airline Highway. “It’s getting really expensive just to drive to and from school.”
Others are trying to save money by driving less or shopping around town for the best prices. Barbra Aalgaard said she comes to the Safeway station because she saves three cents per gallon with her Safeway club card.
“It’s not that much, but it’s better than nothing,” she said.
Aalgaard has family in Monterey, and has cut back her visits with them to once a week so she doesn’t have to make the commute as often. She said it costs her about $35 to fill the tank of her mid-sized Audi sedan, adding “It’s not like I even drive an SUV. All my friends are buying them (SUV’s) now because it’s supposedly cheaper, but it’s not cheaper (with these gas prices) if they get such bad mileage.”
While the rising price of gas seems steady for now, what’s not so predictable is when and by how much the prices will go up in any given week, or even any given day. Robert Baur, a clerk at the Safeway station, said he has to change the prices at the station throughout the day. An hour before being interviewed, Baur changed the sign out front to reflect a four cent price hike.
“A lot of people come in griping about the prices, and I always tell them I don’t know why they’re so high. I just raise them when I get the phone call telling me to,” he said.
The average price of regular unleaded gas in California has jumped to $2.34 per gallon in the past month, AAA of Northern California announced Tuesday. That is a 25 cent hike from the reported average price only a month ago.
“It’s relentless, the punishment consumers are being forced to endure at the gas pump. Every day for the past two weeks, the price goes up,” Sean Comey, spokesperson for the Northern California AAA, said in a statement.
Regardless of local frustrations with the quickly rising prices, one thing is fairly certain: They will probably continue to go up faster than you can say “supply and demand.”
According to AAA’s Comey, the cost of crude oil is going up, contributing heavily to increasing gas prices. “With the cost of crude oil skyrocketing, it seems likely these punishing hikes in the cost of fuel will continue,” he said.
California uses about 16 billion gallons of gas every year, according to the California government’s Energy Commission Web site, and while the state tries to use gas from only in-state oil refineries, there simply aren’t enough to meet its high demand for gas. As a result, California currently has to import about 10 percent of its gasoline from other states and countries, the Energy Commission says, and they expect imported gas to account for 20 percent of California’s supply by 2010.
Jessica Quandt is a staff writer for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at
jq*****@fr***********.com
.
