Gas Prices Are Up Nearly 18 Cents Over Last Year
Floridians have seen an increase in gas prices lately, a nearly 2.5 cents increase over the past week, but they’ve also seen a nearly 18 cents increase over the last year.
According to GasBuddy, gas in Tampa was $1.94 on December 19th of last year. Today commuters in Tampa are paying around $2.14.
Around Florida drivers are paying an average of $2.21 per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline with the weekly increase being roughly 2.5 cents. That puts Florida tied with the national average at the gas pumps.
The GasBuddy map shows that areas such as Orlando, Tampa and Clearwater have the lowest gas prices in the state.
GasBuddy’s historical data shows that gas prices on December 12 in the whole state of Florida averaged in a wide range over the past five years:
- 2015 $2.03/g
- 2014 $2.63/g
- 2013 $3.39/g
- 2012 $3.30/g
- 2011 $3.29/g
“Retail gasoline prices across the country appear to have hit a plateau and that’s not surprising given the mix of potentially upward and downward forces working simultaneously on crude oil prices,” Gregg Laskoski, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, said to WFLA.
“On one hand we have the news that OPEC issued over the weekend; that a group of non-OPEC oil producers led by Russia have agreed to collectively cut 2017 production by 600,000 barrels…” said Laskoski.
“But on the other hand the promises for next year do little to change the robust global supply we have today. OPEC’s November output rose 370,000 bpd to 34.19 million bpd, a record high. Reuters reported that Russian oil production for November also set a new record. Nobody’s saying anyone will cheat on the agreement but old habits are hard to break,” he noted to WFLA.
While gas prices are up from last year, they still aren’t what Floridians were experiencing two to three years ago. Florida’s prices are consistent with the rest of the states, excluding Washington and California whose prices are as high as $2.66 a gallon.
