California gas prices jump more than 5 cents a gallon in 24 hours
In what was seen as a reaction to a fire at a major oil refinery in Northern California, pump prices for regular gasoline statewide rose more than a nickel a gallon from Wednesday to Thursday, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California.
Price jumps of more than 2 cents in a 24-hour period are uncommon.
Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring said the fire at Chevron Corp.’s sprawling Richmond refinery “had an immediate effect on the wholesale gasoline market. Although the refinery is on the shore of San Rafael Bay, north of San Francisco and Oakland, it’s an important fuel provider for Southern California.
“Southern Californians have already been experiencing increased pump prices for nearly a month due to higher oil prices, and this incident has just made the increases come even more quickly,” Spring said.
The parts of the refinery that were not affected by the fire are again operating, but Chevron hasn’t said how much fuel the refinery is able to produce. At peak performance, the plant can produce 243,000 barrels a day, making it the state’s third-biggest refinery.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board team was standing by with inspectors to do structural and environmental tests to see whether it was safe to enter the unit and determine when production might resume after the Monday blaze.
In all, five separate investigations will be done.
“This is an important accident in its own right. It was a large fire and has the potential to affect fuel supplies and prices,” said Daniel Horowitz of the chemical board.
The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area Thursday was $3.956 per gallon, up 5.6 cents in the 24 hours since Wednesday. It was a rise of 10.3 cents since the previous week.
In Orange County, the average price per gallon was up 5.5 cents Thursday and up 10.8 cents in a week.
Some experts expect the disruption in production to last for weeks and push prices beyond $4 a gallon.
“It’ll depend on Chevron getting their facility repaired,” said Patrick DeHaan of GasBuddy.com. “The increases will be felt in California, Oregon and Washington, with perhaps some residual issues in Arizona and other nearby states.”
Sean Comey, a spokesman for Chevron, said myriad factors were pushing gas prices higher. “There are a variety of economic conditions, like rising crude and ethanol costs, which also affect what consumers pay at the pump,” he said.
Bay Area prices rose even faster than in Southern California. San Francisco became the first major city in the state to top $4 a gallon again, rising 6 cents overnight to $4.004.
Statewide, the California average for a gallon of regular also rose 5.2 cents from Wednesday to Thursday to $3.927, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.
The price averages were determined with the use of numbers compiled from service stations.
