Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005 | 11:15 a.m.
Las Vegas residents and visitors figured there was little they could do about the all-time record high gasoline prices Monday night as they pumped fuel into their tanks.
The statewide average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas as of Monday was $2.57, according to AAA Nevada. Some pump prices reached $2.70 a gallon in Las Vegas on Monday night.
"I hadn't really thought about it," Henry Jojola of Las Vegas said as he waited for his SUV's tank to fill with regular unleaded at a gas station at Pecos and Sunset roads. "They kind of have you hooked."
His fill-up costs, he said, have skyrocketed.
Nevada ranks as the third most expensive state in the country in which to buy gas, after California and Hawaii, said Sean Comey, a spokesman for AAA Nevada.
The statewide average price is 23 cents per gallon more than the national average price of $2.34, he said.
"Statewide average gas prices are up 54 cents compared to last year," Comey said. "That's more than a 25 percent increase. Imagine if the cost of some other product or service you relied on -- like food or electricity -- rose at that price."
For single mother Jana Lynn, a 28-year career hairstylist living in Las Vegas for 40 years, the price rise made her angry.
"How do people pay for car insurance, pay for gas, pay for food for their children and put gas in their cars?" Lynn asked at the same gas station.
Although she voted for President Bush in 2004, she vowed to vote her pocketbook to protect her three children from future sticker shock.
"When is it going to stop?" Lynn asked. "Cars will not run on love and air."
John Davidson, a three-year Las Vegas resident who was filling up at a station not far from Warm Springs Road on Las Vegas Boulevard South, predicted gas prices will eventually drop.
"There's a huge surplus and the government reserves are full," he said, adding he drives to stores for groceries and clothes without worrying about the price of gasoline.
So far gasoline prices have not affected vacation or business travel, according to a report released last month by the Federal Reserve.
Medical equipment repairman Dan Larson of Phoenix looked at a gas pump posting $2.72 a gallon in a moment of silence.
"Good grief! It's a lot of money," Larson said at the station on Las Vegas Boulevard.
But neither his business nor vacation plans will change because of the jump in gas prices, Larson said.
"Somebody is making money," he said.
It's not the gas station owners, said Ahmad Hamid, a 30-year Las Vegas resident who operates a minimart and gas pumps at the corner of Sunset and Pecos roads.
Peter Krueger, state executive for the Nevada Petroleum Marketers, said that the country is seeing high prices at the pump because the price-per-barrel of gas is speculative and therefore not representative of the actual cost. The end result, though, is that the price remains high.
The cost to retailers, he said, are greatly affected affected by these market forces. The retailers' price fluctuates two to three times a day, he said, and those increases are passed along to consumers.
Hamid said that he is affected not just as a gas station operator but also as a consumer.
"Nobody talks about the other stuff, like food and traveling to work," Hamid said. "You have to change the ways you travel."
Whenever he ventures out with his family to do errands, "I think of the best route, the shortest possible route," Hamid said.
The main market force driving fuel prices up is the cost of crude oil, the raw materials from which gasoline and diesel fuel are made, Comey said. Crude is now trading well over $64 a barrel, also a new record high.
Rising tensions in the Middle East appear to be provoking heightened concerns about the security of world oil supplies.
The U.S. government closed its embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia Sunday after authorities announced a security threat against U.S. government buildings inside the world's largest petroleum-producing country because of terrorism threats.
A week ago the government of Iran refused to stop its pursuit of weapons-grade nuclear fuel, further raising tensions. Europeans and the United States have warned they would seek U.N. sanctions against the Tehran regime without OPEC's second biggest player behind Saudia Arabia ending its quest for nuclear materials.
Suspected rebels launched renewed attacks on pipelines in eastern India on Sunday, leaving oil operations in remote regions precarious.
Refineries in the United States in the past week had reduced gasoline production. The Sunoco Inc.'s refinery caught fire in Philadelphia over the weekend, following a string of refinery fires and other snags over the past two weeks.
Energy traders also worry about potential problems from tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico, where last year's Hurricane Ivan damaged oil facilities and storms forced evacuations this summer and threatened work into the fall. Last year production in the area dropped for several months.
The average nationwide price for regular unleaded gasoline jumped almost 8 cents last week to $2.37, the Energy Department said late Monday. That's 49 cents above the price per gallon at this time last year.
Worldwide consumption is also rising, adding to the jitters in energy markets, the Energy Department said.
One way consumers can reduce the amount of money they spend on fuel is to shop aggressively for lower prices, AAA Nevada said. Online at www.aaa.com/gasprices, the AAA Fuel Finder has real time gas prices at more than 85,000 stations throughout the United States.
Or find an alternative like Tony Rangl did.
The Californian said he saw $2.69 a gallon prices for regular unleaded in Huntington Beach where he lives and works.
"I'm diesel," Rangl said, searching for a diesel fuel pump in Las Vegas on Monday night. He said he pays about $2.49 a gallon for diesel fuel for his pickup truck.
According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the rising gas prices don't necessarily mean a drop in tourism.
"Historically, we have no data or proof that tourism is affected by rising gas prices," said Erika Yowell, spokeswoman for the LVCVA. "It's something we monitor."
She said the LVCVA has never seen a correlation between falling tourism numbers and rising gas prices. In fact, the numbers of tourists coming to Las Vegas has gone up in recent years despite the high gas prices.
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