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After leaving work and driving past two filling stations, Kenny Conner finally pulled into the Maverik Country Store at 1700 South and 300 West in Salt Lake City on Friday and began pumping gasoline.
The Maverik store, just a few blocks away from where Conner worked at Intermountain Wood Products, was selling regular unleaded gasoline for $2.56 a gallon, well below the $2.70 price offered by the Sinclair station just around the corner.
"It is hard to say what is going on, but there seems to be a big disparity in prices right now," Conner said, leaning against his black 2007 Ford Mustang and watching the numbers roll by on the pump. "I needed gas, and just wanted to fill up in case prices are going up."
He wasn't the only one to notice.
At the intersection of North Temple and Redwood Road, cars were lined up three deep at the Tesoro store where gasoline was selling for $2.52 a gallon. On the opposite corner where Chevron was selling regular unleaded for $2.70 a gallon, there were only a few customers.
Rolayne Fairclough, who tracks the retail cost of gasoline for AAA Utah, said retail gasoline prices are all over the board throughout northern Utah.
"There is a real opportunity for drivers to save a few dollars if they just take the time to shop around," Fairclough said. "Unfortunately, it is very difficult to say how long this situation is going to last."
She said retailers who have raised the prices in recent
And John Hill, state director of the Utah Petroleum Marketers and Retailers Association, suggested some of the price disparity in Utah may be the result of competition among retailers as each tries to gauge the demand in the various neighborhoods where they do business.
AAA Utah reported Friday that the average cost of unleaded regular gasoline in the state was $2.65 a gallon, up 6 cents a gallon from a week ago but unchanged from last month. Nationally, the average price on Friday was also $2.65, up 2 cents from a week ago and 14 cents higher than in mid-July.
"You may be seeing a little bit of a gasoline price war in some locations," said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service, which tracks the wholesale and retail prices of petroleum products on national and local levels.
But more importantly, Kloza said that wholesale prices, which retail prices track, have been "real jumpy" this month, in part because of fluctuations in the price of crude oil.
"Just today [Friday] the wholesale price of gasoline fell 8 cents a gallon," Kloza said. "Were I to guess, I'd say retail prices may go down over the next few days. But then again, the wholesale price may jump 8 cents Monday."
Also, crude oil fell to a two-week low on Friday after a report showed that confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly declined, bolstering skepticism that fuel demand will rebound this year.
"The market may find it hard to maintain these prices with the end of the driving season just a few weeks away," said Bill O'Grady, the chief market strategist for Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis. "The driving season is already past its peak because some school districts have already started classes. We will soon be going into September, which is a really low demand period."
Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
Prices among stations vary widely. A couple of Web sites may help: www.aaa.com/gasprices allows consumers to search for the lowest prices by ZIP code, and www.gasbuddy.com features data from motorists nationwide and specific prices for Utah and the Salt Lake City area.
