Gas Price Stays Above $3 in Alaska

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 22, 6:35AM EDT

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At first, it makes little sense that Alaska is the state with the highest average price for a gallon of regular. Famed for decades as one of the most oil-rich sections of the world, Alaska has a gasoline price of $3.06 per gallon, according to GasBuddy. That is against an average national price of $2.29, as well as South Carolina, which has the lowest price at $1.89 per gallon.

Generally, three things make up the price of gas. The first is oil, and the price of crude is near a multi-month low at $46 a barrel. Next is proximity to large refineries. And the last are state taxes and fees.

Alaska has a major advantage among all other states. It has the lowest gas taxes in America at $0.307 per gallon. That is against a national average of $0.489, according the American Petroleum Institute, and a high of $0.70 in Pennsylvania.

In terms of proximity to refineries, Alaska may be worst off among all states. Oil produced in the state must be moved hundreds of miles south. After some portion of that is refined into gasoline, it has to be moved hundreds of miles north, and then spread throughout a state of more than 663,000 square miles.

The good news for Alaska, and for California with the second highest average price per gallon at $3.04, is that prices are still dropping and may be under $3 soon. In Alaska the average price has dropped 16 cents in the past week, and it is 82 cents lower than a year ago. The national average is down by 35 cents from a week ago and $1.04 from the same time last year.

GasBuddy analysts said recently:

With the summer driving season now in the rear view, gasoline prices are likely to continue moving lower as demand tapers off and strict gasoline requirements are eased in the weeks ahead. Oil prices continue to be volatile, but GasBuddy still expects prices to eventually move lower in the weeks and months ahead due to the aforementioned factors.

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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.