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Energy

Gas Prices Above $3 in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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People looking for low gasoline prices had best stay away from Alaska, California, Hawaii and Nevada. Oil prices may have increased in the past few days, but overall they have swung down over the past two months. As gas prices drop to $2.50 nationwide, based on the cost of a gallon of regular, with some states falling close to $2, living in states far from refineries or with high gas taxes are bound to keep prices well above the national average.

The average price for a gallon of regular in $3.11 in Hawaii, according to GasBuddy, $3.14 in Nevada, $3.37 in California and $3.39 in Alaska. In some California cities, the numbers are grimmer. The price of gas in Los Angeles is $3.58, in Santa Barbara $3.55 and San Diego $3.50.

Gas taxes and fees in three of the high-priced states are well above the national average of $0.489. Hawaii is third highest on the American Petroleum Institute list at $0.635. California is fourth at $0.601 and Nevada 12th at $0.523. Alaska is a notable exception. The oil-rich state has the lowest gas taxes and fees among all states at $0.307.

Moving oil from Alaska down the west coast of Canada and the United States and then moving gasoline back up is expensive. Hawaii has a similar problem. Gas stations are mostly supplied from Asia or the West Coast. California has several refineries, the largest of which are the Chevron USA El Segundo Refinery and the Tesoro-Carson. The refinery capacity, however, does not come close to handling the fuel needs of the population. And Nevada’s refinery capacity is tiny.

If there are economic benefits of low gas prices, the effects are regional, with some states that barely benefit at all because of the factors that keep the price of gasoline in these places high.

ALSO READ: 10 Cities With the Worst Traffic

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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