Gas and diesel prices break records

Diesel prices continue to break records this week. This year has now seen more days with the average gas price over $4 a gallon at 160 days and counting. The previous record was set back in 2022. And according to GasBuddy, California and Colorado have both set new all-time record highs for diesel prices. We're paying so much at the pump. And taking a look now at the latest gas prices, according to GasBuddy, the average cost of a regular gallon of gas for 30 nationwide and of course we pay way more than that around here in Washington we're paying five dollars 41 cents a gallon and that is up three cents from the start of this week joining us now with the latest on these record-breaking prices GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis Patrick Dehan is back with us Patrick good morning good morning thanks for having me yeah so we were talking about breaking that record for the days with the average price over four dollars a gallon i mean is any relief in sight and you could almost swap that out for $5 a gallon in Washington state. As you mentioned, prices still remain elevated. But where we go from here, very hard to predict. We continue to see geopolitical tensions having a major influence on prices. So it's really a question of whether we'll see de-escalation down the road or escalation. If we see more escalation attacks between the US and Iran and Russia and Ukraine, we may see even higher prices down the road. Which road we'll be on, that is the hard prediction to make. But a lot of this stems back to both of those issues, the Strait of Hormuz, New Houthi attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as Ukraine attacks on Russian oil refineries, which President Zelensky had said may ramp up in the days ahead with continued Russian attacks on Ukraine. Something to keep an eye on for sure. Now, Patrick, we were digging through the data, 48 out of 50 states hitting record highs for diesel prices right now, except for Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Why is that? Well, they set records back in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and the Northeast states saw very high prices in light of the fact that much of their refined oil comes from overseas. They are just cents away though. Massachusetts and Rhode Island, less than 10 cents from hitting those all-time highs. And that's something that still could happen this winter. The Northeast United States uses heating oil, which is essentially the same as diesel. And so it would not surprise me if in the weeks ahead, especially if there are new Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries, that they too may eventually hit records. But gasoline and diesel prices still very much connected to those two major geopolitical tensions. So the Strategic Petroleum Reserve hit a four-decade low, holding about 283 million barrels at the end of September. How low can we go and how long would it realistically take for us to replenish that? Well, probably at this point could take years of slow replenishment to get the SPR back to its 700 million barrel capacity. As you mentioned, we're down about 285 million barrels. The government put out a new solicitation today to try and sell the last 17 million barrels of the previously authorized 172 million barrel release. As you mentioned, it's the lowest the SPR has been since it was filled up originally after the Arab oil embargo in the 70s. So we've never seen inventories this low, and they may go a bit lower yet as the U.S. continues to fulfill that 172 million barrel pledge that was announced earlier this year after the U.S. started attacking Iran and the price of oil rose dramatically. Do you have any idea what gas prices could look like over the holidays? Boy, that's certainly a very difficult guess. It, again, really is contingent on whether we'll see escalation or de-escalation. If we see escalation, prices still could hit $6 for a gallon of gasoline, and diesel prices could move beyond $7. Alternatively, if we see de-escalation, prices eventually could slip. But to what degree, it's all up in the air. Really, headlines that develop at a moment's notice are largely going to continue influencing and leading to more volatility in what you're paying at the pump. So very difficult to predict that. Do you have any tips for families that are looking to save money on gas right now? Well, certainly, I think a lot of it is how fuel efficient you can be reducing your consumption, combining your trips, monitoring things like your speed, using your cruise control, reducing speeds on highways and reducing your pace of acceleration can get you more miles out of that tank of fuel. when you do need to fuel up apps like GasBuddy, Google Maps and Waze can show you lower prices in addition you might save by going to a wholesale club there are loyalty programs that many stations offer that reduce the price further of course credit cards are popular even the Pay with Gas Buddy cards available and some stations offer cash discounts as well and i see those lines at some of those uh wholesale uh dealers out there and uh some people are willing to do it Patrick DeHaan with GasBuddy. Thank you so much for your insight. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.