High gas prices can be blamed on the cost of crude oil and the switch to summer blend gasoline, according to GasBuddy.com Senior Petroleum Analyst Patrick DeHaan. “We’re seeing this across much of the Midwest,” he says. “We are transitioning to summer gasoline, and one of the larger refineries in the region is currently undertaking maintenance, which limits the ability to produce as much gasoline at a time of year that demand is starting to rebound. So really, those two factors, combined with oil prices that remain relatively high, are leading to higher gas prices.”
He expects gas prices to continue moving up, until mid-to-late May. “Prices over the last seven years have averaged their peaks, that is, their seasonal high, around May 10, and usually, after this maintenance and transition is done, we do see some relief at the pump,” DeHaan says. “I would expect gas prices this summer to be very similar to where they are today in the mid-upper-two-dollar-a-gallon range.”
According to GasBuddy.com, Indiana gas prices are more than 20-cents-a-gallon higher on average than they were a year ago.
