Gas prices trend up; what you need to know

We've been looking at some of our gas prices, and normally I would show them to you right away, but we do have Gas Buddy's Patrick DeHaan joining us. And right before the break, I said, Patrick, are you ready for the game? And he said, oh, here we go. I had to quickly spring into action. My head's been spinning. We can get to some of the reasons why I was caught off guard here a few moments ago. I just discovered something that might not be great for Wisconsin. But before we launch into that, I see the average in Milwaukee is $4.13 a gallon. So I'm going to guess $4.09, but very close behind it, I could see a $4.19 as well. All right, let's take a look. I wish it was that. Oh, all right, I was off. It's okay, $4.29, but again, we are actually up 6.7 cents from last week in Wisconsin, but still prices have fallen 5.5 cents nationally, which is good. That's all according to GasBuddy data. But I know you had said that there is something that might not be good for Wisconsin. what are you seeing? Yeah, I just looked up, I was a little bit behind my schedule today. I just looked up filings that are made and I'm still looking at it here this afternoon. Refineries, depending on what state they're in, will occasionally make filings related to environmental emissions. And I was looking at those filing reports for yesterday, because some of the numbers looked a little steep today. The wholesale price of gasoline in our region jumped about 10 cents a gallon today. And sure enough, there was a filing from yesterday, the Exxon Mobil refinery outside Joliet, Illinois, indicating that extensive flaring was happening yesterday afternoon. And that is likely behind a big jump in the wholesale price of fuel. So we may keep going up again. This is the same refinery that lost power unexpectedly a little over a month and a half ago. So this is something to keep an eye on, both for gasoline and maybe diesel prices. As you mentioned, Milwaukee's up about 7 cents from a week ago. We may see that trajectory continue. I'll keep an eye on this refinery issue, but I think by now most of us are probably familiar that these refining issues can be impactful. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm thinking back to it was maybe in the early summer or springtime when there were refinery issues across the Great Lakes and it had significant impact. with what you're seeing here how much more of an increase could we potentially see in the near future well it's tough to know exactly at this moment now unlike spring you mentioned the end of april we suddenly surged almost like 70 cents a gallon overnight at the retail level so that was a pretty swift impact i'm not expecting that this time around um instead of us going into summer we're coming out of summer and demand is going down for gasoline we've made the change back to cheaper winter gasoline it's a little early to make a gas but as i mentioned the wholesale price of gas today is up about 10 cents so stations later tonight will be paying a 10 cent bump in their wholesale price so that could start to trickle down to the pump in the next couple days but still a lot of geopolitical factors oil prices were a little bit higher today for West Texas Intermediate crude oil but lower today for Brent and that's because the contract for West Texas Intermediate oil expires tomorrow generally when that happens we see a lot of last minute kind of buying if the situation hasn't improved but still a lot of geopolitical tensions weighing on prices so how long and how high will go is really a function of well the geopolitical issues as they develop but now this refinery issue as well could impact us over the next 24 to 48 hours i'll keep social media updates on if there's any bigger impact but for now just be prepared for more volatility in gas prices i suppose oh man and i know you had mentioned flaring was the issue with the refinery can you talk a little bit more about what that exactly means yeah flaring is when refineries essentially burn off excess pressure whenever there's an issue at a refinery because refineries are essentially baking uh cooking uh crude oil they're cracking those molecules into different parts and whenever there's something that's not uh that that happens that's not supposed to, you have to get rid of all that heat and pressure that builds up. And the way that refineries do that is they essentially start releasing that buildup and pressure, and they ignite it. The flare stack essentially lights it so it burns, so it's safer for communities. Instead of just releasing it, the excess pressure and products can be burned off for a period of time until the pressure has been reduced enough to resume normal operations. So whenever you go by a refinery, if there's a big flare or a big flame in the air, especially with dark suit, you'll know that there's something happening at the refinery that shouldn't be. So that's what the flare stack is. It's meant to keep refineries operating safely when there's a buildup of heat and pressure and when things aren't going the right way. How are you notified of stuff like this? Is somebody showing or saying that there is that smoke that you can see? Somebody rings my doorbell and says oh there's a problem or you have a button no yeah a lot of states have various filings that have to be made um in illinois i don't believe wisconsin has any uh reportable but um as you may know as reporters uh this information is frequently foiled and so some state institutions basically just keep these filings free to the public so that they're available uh that's what i use for the state of illinois there's a handful of states uh where these filings are mandatory and you can find out about them about 24 hours after they happen so i just have to check this filing system once a day to see if there's any new updates all right and we know that you'll keep tabs on that for sure and looking at the map that's behind you i have it in full here talk about what we're seeing here i know illinois always in the red but any other trends that you're noticing this week kind of looks like a fall color map um although indiana and illinois there's something weird going on with the trees there yeah just a wide selection i mean look at that every different shade is represented in the great lakes we have red orange we have wisconsin and light green ohio and light blue and indiana and dark blue um keep in mind illinois has the highest taxes in the region indiana has the lowest prices right now because their gas tax is suspended ohio's gas tax is suspended michigan generally the second highest state for taxes in Wisconsin kind of like right in the middle uh it's not too hot it's not too cold it's i don't say just right because it's still not two bucks a gallon but compared to your neighbors you're kind of right in the middle and i know two bucks a gallon it seems so foreign to us nowadays do you think by the end of the year we could even see anything close to that or do you think will we say if all goes well and everything is resolved how could it even go that fast or by the end of the year things could be resolved i mean in theory it could go that fast uh maybe put that on your christmas list because i have certainly no idea we'll see if santa will deliver but uh you know that's probably a pretty long shot at this point i think i would even settle for prices that are like 350 a gallon instead of you know four bucks a gallon so um it's realistic depending on if how quickly things improve i mean at this point though eight months in i'm not really sure that i would put any money on that. And we're talking, you're talking a little bit about geopolitical tensions and things happening overseas. And we know with this news that Trump waived the sanctions and tariffs against Russia and announcing that deal to bring Russian diesel to the US. How would that affect prices here at home? Well, it may not. I don't know if there's any diesel in Russia to actually be sold to the United States. I mean, Russia is having a difficult time supplying their own market with enough diesel. So the fact that there is apparently millions of barrels of diesel, I'm a little skeptical of that. When it comes to easing sanctions, you know, I don't know what kind of message that sends the Kremlin. But the U.S. is the world's largest oil producer. I would say that we don't really need of any Russia's oil specifically. I mean, the world could use more oil. That's why prices are high. But I don't know if the right answer is getting that from Russia, at least at this moment. And I've been looking here and just looking at the stats from GasBuddy. Gasoline and diesel are moving in two opposite directions this week. feels like. Why is that? Yeah, well, as I mentioned, gasoline is coming out of our peak time of year for gasoline consumption and diesel is going into its peak demand season, which is colder weather. Heating oil and diesel are essentially the same product. So heating oil pulls diesel demand up in the winter. And so as we get closer to colder weather, diesel prices generally go up at the same time gas goes down. So just remember that in the future, gasoline prices are always highest in summer, lowest in winter. For diesel and heating oil, it's the opposite. Prices are higher in winter and lower in summer. And looking at the map specifically for Wisconsin, any tips for people in the Wisconsin area about when to fill up or what we need to do as we continue to ride this roller coaster of prices? Yeah, you know, I always use the GasBuddy app Yeah, you know, that's the best way to do it if you need to fill up. And in terms of timing, you know, that's a tough guess as well. You know, oil prices are down and then they're up, then they're down and up. So I even got it wrong a few times over the last seven months. It might be more than a few times I've gotten it wrong. So I hate to give anyone my advice since I haven't been able to guess accurately. But, you know, once these geopolitical tensions cool off, it will become much more predictable again if and when that happens. But for now, apps like GasBuddy are great. When you do need to fill up, check it out. It takes you about 10 seconds to figure out if the gas at the station near you is a good deal or maybe if it's not so great of a deal. And it is a great tool to use. I know I use it before I have to fill up my gas or try to if I'm not, like, close to empty, which does happen a little too often. But, Patrick, I know you were talking about that refinery issue, and you flagged it at the beginning. We talked a little bit about it. When could we maybe expect updates? Could it be within the next day? Yeah, I mean, I'll post updates as they're available to my GasBuddy guy handle. Usually, yeah, I mean, we've got a little bit of the impact down right now. As I mentioned, wholesale prices did jump 10 cents a gallon in the region today, in our region today. Sometimes the second day after these things happen, there may be more of an impact. So we'll have to see. I don't like some of the language in the filing. It didn't sound really good. And when that can happen, there can be impacts that get delayed into the second or third day. So there's really no telling. Every time these things, these type of things happen, they can be varied in terms of how the market responds to them. All right, Patrick, thanks so much for joining us. We'll be sure to check in, monitor your social media for any updates as well. And I'm going to start writing my Christmas list to get these prices down. Hopefully you and me will. Put old cheap gas on your Christmas list. Hopefully that'll help a lot of us out. Absolutely. We all have to. If we all do it together, maybe it'll work. Patrick, thanks so much for joining us on Fox 6 Now. Again, that refinery issue, Patrick is monitoring. I'll be checking his social media for any updates that we do get. Maybe check in with him again later this week to see how things are looking here in Wisconsin.