You’ve seen gas prices going up in the past week, and now you could soon see the state average reach $2.95 a gallon, says Gasbuddy.com. The company that tracks gas prices and trends sent out a message for customers Wednesday saying Indiana is one of about five Midwestern states where prices are going up sharply.
Refinery maintenance, a major pipeline outage, and low gasoline inventories are getting the blame.
Part of the blame could even be placed on long-gone Hurricane Harvey, as some refiners pushed back maintenance to cover production losses from the affected area. Now with Harvey gone, that pushed back maintenance is colliding with other planned maintenance that was also planned leading to a condensed maintenance season.
Meantime, the Explorer Pipeline, with the capacity of nearly 700,000 barrels per day, sprung a leak last week, interrupting the ability for relief supplies to be sent from the Gulf Coast. And even though you hear often that there is a glut, or an oversupply of gas, all of these issues have pushed gasoline inventories to their lowest levels in more than two years.
Wholesale gas prices have also gone up about 50 cents per gallon.
You can expect relief once the Explorer Pipeline is back up and running, getting more gasoline to the Midwest.
“Relief will be coming. It may take more than a few days or a week,” said Gasbuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan. “But, I would expect as late as Thanksgiving we will see prices lower than where they are today.”
