America’s Cheapest Gas Moves Above $1.50

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 10:49AM EST · Published Apr 13, 10:25AM EDT

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America’s Cheapest Gas Moves Above $1.50 — © Thinkstock

Gasoline is not cheap anymore. Since the national average for a gallon of regular dropped below $1.75, it has risen to $2.08. One marker of gas prices is where the lowest price for a gallon at locations nationwide stands. With the exception of four gas stations, the lowest priced gas in America has gone above $1.50.

Three of the four stations with the lowest priced gas are anomalies. Most of the low gas prices are at locations in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, near huge oil deposits and the block of refineries on the Gulf of Mexico south of Houston. The anomalies are stations where regular is priced at $1.49 in South Carolina, Georgia and Iowa.

Twenty of the stations among the 50 with the lowest gas prices are in Texas, with prices ranging from $1.55 to $1.61. Nine are in Oklahoma, according to GasBuddy.

The fact that gas prices are low in Louisiana should be no surprise, as the state, along with Oklahoma, has the lowest prices by state average at $1.85. Texas is fifth lowest at $1.88. By contrast, the highest price in any state is California at $2.78, which is 93% above the location with the lowest price.
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Obviously, the largest factor that drives gas prices up or down is the price of oil. It trades above $41, compared to a 52-week low of $29.85. There are rumors that some of the largest oil-producing nations will cut production. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia says it will not. Furthermore, gross domestic product (GDP) growth in China has dropped to levels not posted since the Great Recession, and the IMF recently downgraded its global GDP forecast.

Among the other critical elements that affect gas prices are taxes and levies, which are widely different from state to state. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the average state gas tax is $0.48. In Texas, the figure is $0.38 and in Oklahoma $0.35.

Gas prices probably will continue to rise, but the cheapest gas by state still will be in Oklahoma and Texas.

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.