As a holiday weekend approaches, what will Fresno drivers pay to fill their gas tanks?
Gasoline prices continued to tick higher in Fresno, but could remain stable or even fall by the coming Memorial Day three-day holiday weekend.
Since May 1, when most of California switched to a less volatile summer-blend formulation for gasoline, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded in the Fresno market has climbed by 14 cents, to an average of $4.06 on Monday, according to real-time data compiled by GasBuddy.com.
But drivers filling up their tanks in Fresno could find prices ranging from as low as $3.59 per gallon at some stations to as high as $4.49 per gallon at others.
The cheapest gas in the area was reported at the Costco membership store near Shaw and Clovis avenues in Clovis, where the price was $3.59 per gallon. Among stations where purchases are not limited to score members, the lowest prices were $3.65 per gallon, reported at an Arco station at Alluvial and Willow avenues in Clovis and a Pennywise station at Belmont and Calaveras avenues, just west of Blackstone Avenue in central Fresno.
As more people resume their normal habits after a year of limitations spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, growing demand for fuel is one of the key factors driving prices higher, said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.com.
“Summer tends to be higher in terms of price and it’s simply because more people are on the road during the summer,” DeHaan said in a blog post Monday. “Due to the huge drop in demand last year for oil and the massive drop in price, oil producers greatly scaled back, but didn’t plan on demand bouncing back so much this year.”
“So supply has not matched the rise in demand, a factor that could raise summer prices higher this year than recent years, until oil producers start ramping back up,” he added.
Just over a year ago, in late April 2020, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline in Fresno was about $2.44 per gallon.
AAA, the national auto association, reported that it expects gasoline prices for the Memorial Day weekend to be the most expensive over the holiday since 2014.
“AAA expects 37 million Americans to travel, mostly by car and plane, for the Memorial Day holiday weekend,” AAA spokesperson Jeanette McGee said in a Monday statement. “That is a 60% increase over last year’s holiday and a strong indication that summer travel is going to be largely popular.”
A recent travel survey of drivers by GasBuddy.com indicated that one of the biggest roadblocks to even more summer travel is high gasoline prices.
“With more people vaccinated and the economy opening, 57% of Americans plan to take at least one road trip this summer, up substantially from 2020’s 31%,” according to the GasBuddy survey.
California’s gas prices remain substantially higher than the national average, reported by GasBuddy at $3.03 per gallon. The California average was about $4.15 per gallon on Monday afternoon.
