Las Vegas gas prices have seen major spike; is relief on the way?
Gasoline prices have spiked over the last week in the Las Vegas Valley, with the average price for a gallon of fuel knocking on the $4 per gallon mark.
The cost of gas in Southern Nevada has jumped 21 cents per gallon in the past week, bringing the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas to $3.94, according to AAA data.
“You’re really going to start seeing the increases over the next two to three days, you’ll probably see most stations over the $4 mark,” said Patrick De Haan, lead petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.
The jumping gas prices are result of the annual change over from the cheaper winter grade gas to the more expensive summer grade gas, which is being hampered by the PBF Energy refinery in Northern California still being offline following a fire in February, De Haan said.
“So, right now it’s all the seasonal stuff, refinery maintenance and the refinery outage, coupled with rising demand” De Haan said. “Demand is going up as it gets warmer out.”
The 6 percent week-over-week increase in gas in Southern Nevada is a 14-cent jump compared with the price a month ago but is still 55 cents per gallon cheaper than the $4.49 per gallon Las Vegans were paying on this date one year ago.
“It could be a lot worse,” De Haan said. “I would hope we wouldn’t stick around $4 for most of the summer. I hope there would be relief, but that refinery is not going to get back online until later this year. So that could be a challenge that results in more pain down the road.”
Statewide the average price for a gallon of gas on Tuesday was $3.92, up 17 cents over the last week. Nevada’s average price is far above the national average of $3.20 cents per gallon, which is up 7 cents in the last week.
Nevada features the fourth most expensive gas prices in the nation, only trailing California ($4.85 per gallon), Hawaii ($4.52) and Washington ($4.21).
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
