Oil Prices Dropping, Gas Prices Aren’t
SPOKANE — Oil prices inched up Monday though they’re still almost $23 lower now than they were just a few weeks ago. The rough rule of thumb is for every dollar, a barrel of oil moves it translates to 2.5 cents per gallon at the gas pump.
If that’s true, the price at the pump should be about 50 cents lower than it was just a few weeks ago. But its not.
In Spokane right now, drivers are still paying about $4.15 a gallon.
In the same amount of time that oil prices have dropped $23 gas prices in Spokane saw a mere four cent per gallon drop.
Triple-A reports that the reason it takes so long for the drop in the price of oil to be noticed at the pump is because of a delay in the time the gas companies buy the oil and the time it actually reaches your tank.
That means the gas you’re buying now was not made with oil bought at today’s price.
On average gas in Washington State is 27 cents higher than the national average.
Triple-A was asked why it seems that when the price of oil goes up we almost immediately see an increase when we fill up our tanks. They didn’t have an answer for that
According to AAA the price of gas in Spokane remains the cheapest in the state at an average of $4.15 a gallon. Triple-A speculates that if the price of oil stays at this price or continues to go down nationwide there could be a 25 cent a gallon decrease by Labor Day.
