NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Gas prices are still lower in Kansas than most of the country.
"We've really been stable here for the last couple of weeks," said Shawn Steward with AAA Kansas. "We did see a bit of a jump here in Kansas earlier in the month around the July 4th holiday, but it's been fairly stable over the last few weeks. We're at $3.17 a gallon right now on average across Kansas, and that's $0.34 less than the national average of $3.51 a gallon, and that puts us eighth lowest in the nation. So, we have seen a little bit of an uptick over the last week. We're up one cent, and from a month ago, we're up nine cents here in the state. But overall, not too bad, especially when we look at the national average, and we look back a year ago here in Kansas, and we were at $3.42 a gallon, so about a quarter more than we are now."
Area county prices are on either side of the state average.
Reno $3.08
McPherson $3.04
Harvey $3.22
Sedgwick $3.35
Kingman $3.27
Pratt $3.26
Stafford $3.23
Rice $3.29
"Oil prices have fallen quite a bit," Steward said. "Back in April, a barrel of oil was in the upper $80, but today we're about almost $10 a barrel cheaper than that, around $77. So, that might mitigate any upward pressure on pump prices in the near term."
Kansas and points to the south are the cheapest section of the country at the pumps generally.
"Kansas has been in the top 10 in terms of cheapest average gas prices in the nation for quite a while now, so that's generally where we fall, so it's a good place to be. You know, it's obviously much higher gas prices, especially when you head out to the Mountain West or the West Coast, and certainly the East Coast is quite a bit higher than us as well."
The lowest state in the continental U.S. is Mississippi, at an average of $2.99 a gallon as of Friday.
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