Gas Prices Move Toward $3 in San Franciso

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 10:19AM EST · Published Apr 26, 6:46AM EDT

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Gas Prices Move Toward $3 in San Franciso — © Thinkstock

It has been a long time since the price of an average gallon of regular gasoline topped $3 anywhere in the United States. The price is close to that in San Francisco, and based on the trend, it could breach that level soon.

The current price for an average gallon of regular in San Francisco is $2.90, according to GasBuddy. From the standpoint of gas prices in California, the San Francisco price is part of a trend. The 16 cities nationwide with the highest prices of gas are in California, and the state has the highest average price for gallon of regular across the 50 states at $2.77

The high gas prices in California are not clustered just around San Francisco. The Los Angeles average price is $2.83. In San Diego, the price is $2.79.

California has several problems that keep its gas at the high end of the U.S. range. The first, obviously, is crude prices. They have risen from $30 in January to $43 recently. In the most recent five days, they have spiked, driven primarily by speculation that the Saudis and other OPEC members have not reached a deal to cap production. Iran has openly refused to commit to terms for a cap.
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Second, California is not near any large clusters of oil refineries. That means the cost of transport gets added to the base price of gas at the refinery. Based on its size, and the population of its huge cities, California is particularly gas hungry.

Finally, gas taxes and levies in the state are high by national standards. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the tax per a gallon of gas averages $0.5883 in California. The average among all states is $0.4804. At the far end of the spectrum, Alaska has a tax of only $0.3065.

As gas prices continue to rise, which is almost a sure thing, the San Francisco price will top $3 soon.

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.