Have you filled up the gas tank recently? Going through sticker shock? In the past week gas prices in Yakima are up 8.6 cents per gallon selling on an average of $3.12 per gallon according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 91 station in the Yakima area. GasBuddy says gas prices in Yakima are 33.9 cents per gallon higher than a month ago and stand 25.1 cents per gallon higher than a year ago. GasBuddy tracks where the cheapest gas is sold in the valley. GasBuddy says the cheapest station in Yakima is priced at $2.76/g today while the most expensive is $3.39/g, a difference of 63.0 cents per gallon. The lowest price in the state today is $2.62/g while the highest is $3.79/g, a difference of $1.17/g.  Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy says "As Americans turn optimistic on COVID-19 pandemic recovery, we've been seeing insatiable demand for gasoline, which continues to recover far faster than oil production. According to GasBuddy data, last week's gasoline demand was just 1% below the pre-pandemic level, an extremely bullish factor likely to continue driving gas and oil prices up in the short term," De Haan continues "The recovery in the last few weeks has been astounding- both the speed and overall volume increases we've seen in our data lend credibility to the recovery, and perhaps will lead to continued price increases due to the continued imbalance between supply and demand. It's no longer a question of if we'll see gasoline demand return to near normal this year but when, and will oil producers rise to the occasion and be able to quickly ramp up output, or are we going to see the highest summer prices since 2014 until they jump into action? Only time will tell, but it's looking like things are heating up far more than expected since the start of the year."
Nationally gas prices are rising as well. Over the last week gas prices are up 5.9 cents per gallon selling for an average of $2.86 per gallon.

 

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