Motorists fuel up at Fred Meyer on Yellowstone Avenue in Pocatello on Friday.

Motorists fuel up at Fred Meyer on Yellowstone Avenue in Pocatello on Friday.

The cost of fuel continues to drop in the Gem State and across the country, though Idaho drivers are still paying more at the pump than motorists in all but six states.

Idaho’s average cost of gas as of Friday was $4.61 per gallon, which is 5 cents cheaper than last week, 40 cents cheaper than a month ago and 81 cents more expensive than one year ago, according to information from AAA.

GasBuddy also has Idaho as having the seventh most expensive gas in the country, though it lists the average cost as 3 cents cheaper than the figures provided by AAA. The only states where the average cost of fuel per gallon is more expensive than Idaho are Hawaii, California, Nevada, Alaska, Oregon and Washington according to both AAA and Gasbuddy.

The price of fuel has been falling throughout the country over the past two months, though the drop has been less pronounced for the Gem State and others in the West.

“In Idaho what we are seeing is definitely a downward trend like you’re seeing elsewhere in the country, but it’s a lot slower,” said AAA Idaho Public Affairs Director Matthew Conde. “And part of that has to do with the fact that in the West, not just here in Idaho, but in other states, you see this stretched out distance between places. People are still traveling farther point to point, people are still coming in passing through, it just takes more mileage to get from point to point in the West. And so you do have these situations where gas prices do tend to stay a little higher in the summertime in our region for that reason.”

The average price per gallon for gas in the local region, including East Idaho and cities in Utah near the Idaho border fluctuates, with Tremonton, Utah, boasting the cheapest average cost per gallon at $4.35, GasBuddy reported. The average cost per gallon is the most expensive in Pocatello at $4.69, according to GasBuddy.

The average cost per gallon of fuel in Blackfoot is $4.60, in Idaho Falls it’s $4.51, Rexburg $4.67, Rigby $4.60, Driggs $4.64, Preston $4.63, Challis $4.41, Montpelier $4.62 and Logan, Utah, $4.62, GasBuddy reported.

Sanju Choudhury, who owns the Country Corner gas station on Bannock Highway in south Pocatello, said it seems that Pocatello consistently has the highest gas prices in East Idaho despite the fact the fuel pipeline supplying the region ends in the city, which would make one think that the city’s gas would be cheaper because the distribution cost would be lower.

“I don’t know why Pocatello’s (gas) prices are higher,” Choudhury said. “I don’t have the answer. People who have lived here for years don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

Choudhury said that local gas stations are at the mercy of their distributors when it comes to setting their gas prices. He said that when gas prices were over $5 per gallon locally, he was making less than 2 cents per gallon profit and that typically gasoline sales are not a big moneymaker for gas stations because of the very low profit margin for fuel.

Choudhury said the food and beverages gas stations sell enable them to stay in business, not gasoline sales.

“You’d go out of business. No one could stay open on just fuel (sales),” he said.

Choudhury said he charged $4.71 per gallon for gas on Friday, slightly over the average price that day in the city. He said he always charges slightly more because he sells Chevron gas which provides motorists with better mileage and overall quality than other brands.

He said Country Corner is a big part of the south Pocatello community and he is fortunate to have many loyal customers who don’t complain to him about his gas prices.

Perhaps the biggest disparity in East Idaho gas prices on Friday was the $4.59 per gallon being charged by the Pocatello Costco compared to the $4.08 per gallon at the Idaho Falls Costco, GasBuddy reported. Costco wasn’t immediately available for comment regarding the price difference.

Generally, the average price per gallon is cheaper in the Panhandle region of Idaho than the rest of the state, with Nez Perce County, home to Lewiston, reporting the least expensive price statewide at $4.10 per gallon on Friday. The average price per gallon in Boise has fallen 40 cents in the last month and currently sits at $4.72. In Twin Falls, where the average price per gallon is $4.66, gas prices have fallen 42 cents since July.

Despite the cost of fuel falling throughout the U.S. for the past 10 weeks, Idaho and other western states are still well above the national average price per gallon of $3.86.

Some of that has to do with the geography of the West as Conde pointed out, but it is also impacted by the locations and efficiencies of the fuel refineries in the country.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, says the U.S. is divided into five Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts, or PADDs, which were created during World War II under the Petroleum Administration for War to help organize the allocation of fuels derived from petroleum products, including gasoline and diesel fuel. The PADDs are geographic aggregations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia into five districts: PADD 1 is the East Coast, PADD 2 is the Midwest, PADD 3 is the Gulf Coast, PADD 4 is the Rocky Mountain region including Idaho and Utah, and PADD 5 is the West Coast.

Currently, fuel prices in the Rocky Mountain and West Coast regions are much higher than those in the Gulf Coast and East Coast regions, particularly because many of the country’s largest refineries are located in the Gulf Coast area and transporting that fuel to the East Coast is much easier and cheaper than shipping it to the western side of the country.

“What happens is that supply and demand in these regions can be different,” De Haan said. “The Gulf Coast is home to many of the nation’s largest refineries. And so they are generally an area that is well supplied. The Rockies is another region. And unfortunately, supply was very tight this spring because of a refinery fire in Montana that occurred in March. That fire led to tightness in supply that worsened over time. That’s why you’ll notice the Rockies have been kind of alongside the West Coast in terms of experiencing high prices relative to the rest of the country.”

De Haan added, “Whenever there’s a region of the country that’s in excess of what’s going on nationally, or if those relationships between your state and national average change, there’s often a reason why and in this case, it’s that refinery fire. Now, there has been improvement. The gap is starting to close between Idaho and the rest of the country because that refinery has made repairs and is back online. But it does take some time to catch up for supply to catch up to where you would have been all along.”

Conde said that the Ukraine-Russia conflict exacerbated fuel costs across the globe.

“The largest driving factor for high fuel costs has definitely been crude oil,” he said. “And when Russia invaded Ukraine, it sent a shock wave through the system the likes of which we haven’t seen since the recession. And so when you have that type of a situation, certainly the refinery issue in Montana could have played some role in that. But that effect was probably largely masked by the overall rising crude oil prices, which skyrocketed in late February going into early March, right at the start of the spring and summer driving season.”

Whether the current downward gas price trend will continue in the U.S. is uncertain. So far, the country has been lucky in that no hurricanes have made landfall in the Gulf Coast and East Coast areas, though the peak season for such impactful weather events will continue over the next two months before risks start to subside.

Conde is hopeful the average price per gallon in the Gem State will fall to around the $4.50 mark by the Labor Day weekend, but whether that number will remain flat is left to be determined.

“It’s important to know that demand has been slowly recovering as prices have been falling,” Conde said. “So what you’re going to see is some kind of a meeting between the two. And eventually there’ll be this intersection point where, and it’ll probably happen after Labor Day, where you’ll see the demand sort of meet the prices, kind of a final plateauing.”

He continued, “We may see a little bit of a plateau heading into Labor Day, and then hopefully prices will really take a drop, barring a hurricane event heading into the fall. Obviously, right now, the important thing to ask is, ‘How low can they go?’ The lower they get heading into January, which is historically the cheapest price in Idaho in any given year, then we have something more favorable to work with. If (Idaho) prices only dropped down to say $3.50 per gallon by the end of the year, well then we’re going to be looking at some pretty rough prices again in the spring and summer of 2023. If they do manage to get below $3, then maybe we get something more friendly for travel and all the road trips we want to take.”

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