Since peaking in mid-July, the state's average price for unleaded gasoline has fallen only 6 cents, while averages in most surrounding states have fallen by double that - or more. Arizona, for instance, is down 23 cents from its peak.
Irate consumers have peppered Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s office and other state agencies with angry calls, in some cases suggesting a gas-price conspiracy by station owners and refineries.
The reasons for the disparity are varied, and some are hard to nail down, but this much is being conceded by John Hill, state director of the Utah Petroleum Marketers and Retailers Association, which represents station owners:
There is some old-fashioned profit-taking going on, and Hill isn't necessarily apologizing for it.
"Right now, stations are making a little more than usual" as prices fall elsewhere but more slowly here. He argues that it's important to remember that for much of the rest of the year, prices often are much slower to rise than in the rest of the nation.
"We lag behind the national market as the price goes up, and we lag the market as the price goes down," he said.
Lee Peacock of the Utah Petroleum Association, which represents fuel suppliers, agrees.
"If you look over time, we aren't significantly out of line, compared with the national average."
Data from AAA Utah, which tracks pump prices nationally, supports their claim. For most of 2008, Utah's unleaded gasoline prices have actually been among the nation's lowest. In March, Utah had the 11th-lowest price nationwide.
But that's of little comfort to Utahns such as retiree Jim Dana of West Valley City, who relies on Social Security and is avoiding driving these days because of $4 - and higher - gasoline.
"I just want to know why we're paying more than most everyone else," he said.
Profit-taking aside, there are no easy answers to that question.
Myriad factors affect pump prices, chief of which is the price of oil, which also has fallen in recent weeks. Others include the cost of transporting the oil to refineries and to individual stations, as well as demand from consumers and competition among stations.
Rolayne Fairclough, a spokeswoman for AAA Utah, said she has studied about a decade's worth of gas-price data for Utah and noticed that the state's average tends to be higher than the national figure in summer, but among the nation's lowest in the winter.
Why? Fairclough said a lot of that has to do with high demand during the summer months, especially in the Salt Lake area, where many residents drive to vacation destinations and nonresidents stop for fill-ups on driving trips throughout the Intermountain West.
Ultimately, though, there are few hard answers as to why gas prices do what they do. Except for the price of crude oil, which is publicly traded, less is known about how much those farther down the line such as refiners and retailers earn in profits.
Francine Giani, director of the Utah Commerce Department, said a state investigation into high gas prices a few years ago fizzled because few stations or refinery companies cooperated.
Giani ultimately concluded that some gas station owners were taking profits at the expense of consumers, but "we just didn't have a lot of information. A lot of that information was considered proprietary."
Consumers' outrage has led Gov. Huntsman's office to revisit the issue by examining the state's gas prices in relation to the rest of the country to look for any signs consumers are being gouged, spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley said today.
That does not appear to be happening, she said, adding that high prices in the summer seem to balance out with lower prices in the winter over the past two years. The governor's office also buys into the theory that although prices in Utah are slower to fall, they are also slower to rise.
Gov. Huntsman's advice? Drive the speed limit (you often can get more miles per gallon at lower speeds), drive as little as possible and purchase gasoline from the stations with the lowest prices.
