I Paid $4.00 Per Gallon For Premium Gas in Utica, Regular You May Be Next

People really only get outraged about gas prices when the dollar amount changes. For example, when gas moved from $2.99 a gallon to that $3 or over. Well, I was outraged yesterday when I pulled up to the gas pump and read that the premium gas my car requires moved to $4.00!

I can't recall the last time, if ever, I paid anything close to $4 a gallon. I went back and looked at old bank statements from July 2020. On July 13th, 2020 I paid $32.25 to fill my tank from nearly empty. On Wednesday, I paid $54.75 for the same amount of premium fuel. I understand that's the price of premium fuel, but the prices are creeping steadily upward for regular fuel as well. AAA updates communities across the country what the average price of regular gas is each and every week. They also break down where it compares to a week, month and year ago.

As of Thursday, July 8th, 2021 the average price for regular fuel in the Utica-Rome region is $3.24 per gallon. Last year at this time, the average price was $2.27 a gallon. That's almost a full dollar increase in one year. At this time last month the average price for a gallon of regular was $3.15. That's a 10 cent jump. Why is the cost of fuel going up? It could be a number of things, but frankly the shutting down of the Keystone XL pipeline can't help. Just look at what the ransomware attack and subsequent shutdown did to fuel supplies in the Southeast earlier this year. We are no longer completely energy independent and our wallets and bank accounts are paying for it.