Hawaii gas stays high, but Washington predicts national decline
Hawaii gas stays high, but Washington predicts national decline
- 2004-06-16 - Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
Howard Dicus
The U.S. Department of Energy predicts gas prices nationwide will fall about 20 cents a gallon over coming months. In Hawaii, though, prices remain at or near their highest levels ever.
Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Tuesday that "barring any unexpected supply disruptions" his agency was "cautiously optimistic" that pump prices would "continue to ease over coming weeks and months," to a national average price of $1.82 a gallon for self-serve regular.
The national average peaked May 26 at $2.05 4/10 and stood at $1.98 Tuesday as Caruso testified. Hawaii, as usual, was a different story, not only because of its price differential, which can be partially explained by transportation and land costs, but also because of the tendency of island prices to keep pace with most uptrends but not as many downtrends.
Around the islands, AAA does a daily retail price survey in three locales. These are average self-serve regular prices posted for Wednesday morning:
Honolulu: $2.24, down 1.4 cents from the record high of May 28.
Hilo: $2.38 3/10, a new record high.
Wailuku: $2.63 9/10, down three cents from the record high of June 3.
Prices actually vary considerably in Hawaii. On the Big Island, for example, Kona prices are far above Hilo averages. And the Wailuku average does not begin to approach the prices in more remote parts of Maui. Prices are usually at or above Wailuku levels on Lanai, Molokai and Kauai as well.
Average prices imply that some stations charge less, and that, too, is true, sometimes counterintuitively. The first gas station one encounters on driving into Waikiki from Honolulu is not an especially expensive one, for example, and one of the lower-priced stations in Hilo is the last one before car rental drop-off at the airport.
In the global news background in advance of Wednesday, the price of New York benchmark crude fell most of the way to $37 a barrel, nearly $5 less than the peak reached earlier this month. Traders seemed to be thinking about supply and demand again -- and there is adequate supply with OPEC pumping more -- after weeks of ignoring that in favor of fretting about terrorists might do. What terrorists have actually done is to mount a series of successful attacks on refineries and pipelines in the Middle East without making a dent in overall supplies.
Reach Howard Dicus at hdicus@bizjournals.com.
- 2004-06-16 - Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
Howard Dicus
The U.S. Department of Energy predicts gas prices nationwide will fall about 20 cents a gallon over coming months. In Hawaii, though, prices remain at or near their highest levels ever.
Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Tuesday that "barring any unexpected supply disruptions" his agency was "cautiously optimistic" that pump prices would "continue to ease over coming weeks and months," to a national average price of $1.82 a gallon for self-serve regular.
The national average peaked May 26 at $2.05 4/10 and stood at $1.98 Tuesday as Caruso testified. Hawaii, as usual, was a different story, not only because of its price differential, which can be partially explained by transportation and land costs, but also because of the tendency of island prices to keep pace with most uptrends but not as many downtrends.
Around the islands, AAA does a daily retail price survey in three locales. These are average self-serve regular prices posted for Wednesday morning:
Honolulu: $2.24, down 1.4 cents from the record high of May 28.
Hilo: $2.38 3/10, a new record high.
Wailuku: $2.63 9/10, down three cents from the record high of June 3.
Prices actually vary considerably in Hawaii. On the Big Island, for example, Kona prices are far above Hilo averages. And the Wailuku average does not begin to approach the prices in more remote parts of Maui. Prices are usually at or above Wailuku levels on Lanai, Molokai and Kauai as well.
Average prices imply that some stations charge less, and that, too, is true, sometimes counterintuitively. The first gas station one encounters on driving into Waikiki from Honolulu is not an especially expensive one, for example, and one of the lower-priced stations in Hilo is the last one before car rental drop-off at the airport.
In the global news background in advance of Wednesday, the price of New York benchmark crude fell most of the way to $37 a barrel, nearly $5 less than the peak reached earlier this month. Traders seemed to be thinking about supply and demand again -- and there is adequate supply with OPEC pumping more -- after weeks of ignoring that in favor of fretting about terrorists might do. What terrorists have actually done is to mount a series of successful attacks on refineries and pipelines in the Middle East without making a dent in overall supplies.
Reach Howard Dicus at hdicus@bizjournals.com.
posted by DP at 8:06 PM
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