Labor Day weekend is traditionally one of the busiest times of the year for automotive travel, but AAA Northeast is reporting that motorists shouldn’t expect gasoline price to be any higher than they were on the holiday weekend a year ago.
Average gas prices near the start of the Labor Day weekend in 2022 were $3.75 per gallon of regular fuel in the Hartford metro area and were just slightly under that on Tuesday, according to GasBuddy, a fuel price tracking web site. Gas prices in the New Haven metro area near the start of Labor Day weekend 2022 were just above the $3.85 per gallon and now, a year later, are slightly under that level.
Connecticut consumers have felt plenty of pain at the pump for most of this summer, with prices for a gallon of regular gas increasing by anywhere from 20-to-30 cents per gallon above where they were at the end of the Memorial Day weekend this year, according to data from GasBuddy.
Alec Slatky, a spokesman for AAA Northeast, said gas prices in Connecticut dropped slightly this week. The statewide average for a gallon of self-service regular gasoline was $3.81 on Monday, 2 cents lower than last week and 9 cents lower than last year.
Average gas prices in Connecticut’s six metro regions on Monday ranged from a high of $3.85 in the Bridgeport area to a low of $3.78 per gallon in the Hartford area, according to Slatky. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas on Monday was $3.82, which was 5 cents lower than last week and 3 cents lower than last year.
Slatky said several factors drove up the price of gasoline in Connecticut for most of this summer,
“The high temperatures, the heat waves served to depress demand, which drove up the price,” he said. “It also hurt production because a lot of refineries can’t operate during periods of triple digit temperatures. And also, OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) cut production levels.”
Connecticut gas station owners are also closely scrutinizing prices. In addition to having to pay more for the fuel they sell, higher prices at the pump also mean lower volumes of customers and fewer consumers shopping at the convenience stores that are part of many service stations’ business models.
Gerry Katz, owner of Gerry’s Shell Food Mart on Willow Street in New Haven, said he thinks people are driving less.
“The person who came in for a full tank of gas is now getting $10 or $15 worth,” Katz said Tuesday. “The lower the price of gas is, the more people come in and buy groceries. My profit margins on the price of gas are the worst I’ve seen in a year.”
Kevin Curry is a Meriden resident who owns a fuel wholesale business as well Teddy’s Stores, which has five New Haven County convenience stores with fuel pumps. Curry said that in order for a service station with a convenience store to be successful overall, “you need both, the whole picture.”
“Gasoline sales drive inside sales,” he said. “And where your station is located is a factor, especially this weekend. If your station is in a business district in Hartford, you’re not going to do much business this weekend because is going to be at the shoreline.”
Looking beyond the holiday weekend, Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said he expects gas prices in Connecticut to fall anywhere from 25-to-50 cents per gallon by the end of the year “if things go smoothly for the rest of the year in terms of the hurricane season and other factors.”
One factor that will reduce prices well before the end of the year is the annual switchover by oil refineries from making summer blend gasoline to producing the winter version, DeHaan said. Winter blend gasoline has more butane in it than the summer version, which he said makes it cheaper to produce.
“Refineries are just starting to produce winter blend gas and as early as Sept. 16th. they can start selling it,” DeHaan said. “It won’t happen overnight, but it’s going to result in a 10 to 20 percent decrease at the pump.
Curry said it is extremely difficult to predict where gas prices are headed.
“It’s all about Wall Street and what they are doing there,” he said. “Gasoline is a commodity and we are at the mercy of the commodities market and Wall Street.”
One wild card in terms pricing is the ongoing hurricane season. A pair of storms are currently threatening Florida’s Gulf Coast, but DeHaan said Florida doesn’t have any major refinery infrastructure that would impact…
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