$4-per-gallon gas hits SLO County as California, national prices creep up
If you haven't noticed already, expect to see gas prices hit the $4 mark in San Luis Obispo County in the coming weeks, as analysts predict the most expensive driving season in recent years will continue to drive up costs at the pump.
The average price of a gallon of gas in the county was $3.72 on Sunday, according to gas prices tracker GasBuddy.com (averages for Monday were not yet available).
Prices across the county varied, according to the website, with Pismo Beach reporting the highest gas prices at $4.15 a gallon at the Chevron station on Five Cities Drive and Shell station on Shell Beach Road on Monday. Cambria gas prices also closed in on the $4 mark, with two of the town's three stations reporting prices at $3.99 per gallon.
The lowest gas price in the county was in Morro Bay, where Morro Gas on Morro Bay Boulevard was charging $3.43 per gallon on Monday.
According to GasBuddy, San Luis Obispo County had the fifth-highest gas prices in the nation Sunday, behind the Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina metro area in Hawaii and San Francisco, San Rafael and Santa Barbara areas in California.
Without the full day's worth of data in, California itself appeared to overtake Hawaii for highest gas prices in the country Monday afternoon, with an average of $3.63 per gallon, compared with $3.58 per gallon in Hawaii. (Because of the difference in time zones, Hawaii's average was still subject to change through Monday evening.)
National gas prices were also up — the U.S. daily national average was $2.81 per gallon, up from about $2.29 per gallon last year — and it's only expected to increase as we head into the typically more expensive summer driving months.
President Donald Trump's anticipated decision on whether he will scrap the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions could also impact crude oil prices and drive pump prices up.
In an Associated Press report on the rising gas prices, Global Head of Energy Analysis for Oil Price Information Service Tom Kloza said: "This will be the most expensive driving season since 2014."
This story was originally published May 7, 2018 at 5:34 PM with the headline "$4-per-gallon gas hits SLO County as California, national prices creep up."