NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Shawn Steward with AAA Kansas notes that gas prices are going where they've been before, but it has been a while.
"We have reached a milestone here in Kansas today, hitting $2.99 a gallon for the statewide average for a gallon of gas," Steward said. "That's the first time that we have been sub $3 since January 18th of this year. It's been a while. Another interesting point is that we're exactly where we were, $2.99 a gallon, from one year ago today. That's big news considering the record highs we saw in the middle of this year, a trend that drivers certainly are appreciating, I think."
Area counties are on both sides of the average. Reno County is at $2.97, McPherson County at $2.95, Harvey County at $2.91, Sedgwick County at $2.89, Kingman County at $3.10, Rice County is at $3.10, with Stafford County at $3.05. The highest county is Morton County at $3.52, the lowest is Brown County at $2.81.
"The main thing is low crude oil prices," Steward said. "We've been seeing that for the past couple of months. Crude oil generally makes up 50 to 60% of the price of a gallon of gas that we see at the pumps. We've been seeing crude oil prices at or below $80 per barrel."
Crude prices at their height in mid-June were at $130 per barrel. Kansas is 9th least expensive for gas in the nation as of Monday.
"This past weekend, OPEC+, a group of oil producing nations, they decided to maintain their output cuts of 2 million barrels per day or about 2 percent of world demand. The purpose of that move is to boost the global oil price, which has fallen recently on fears of economic weakness."
It still remains to be seen what the world will ultimately do with the Russian oil that is already out there and if the $60 per barrel price agreed to by the G7 holds and depresses overall prices.
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