TALLAHASSEE – Gasoline costs in Florida went up past and topped the countrywide common as expected demand from customers and the unplanned shutdown at a massive refinery in Indiana pushed pump rates higher.
The AAA vehicle club stated the regular price of a gallon of frequent unleaded Tuesday in Florida was $3.34, up 7 cents from a week earlier and up 34 cents from a month ago.
In Miami-Dade, the typical was $3.35, up from $3.28 a week in the past, and in Broward, it was $3.39, up from $3.32 last 7 days.
Meanwhile, the countrywide typical Tuesday was $3.28, up a nickel from a week previously and up 20 cents from a month ago.
AAA pointed to a shutdown at the BP-Whiting refinery in Indiana as a “significant contributor” to boosts. The refinery, which procedures about 435,000 barrels of crude oil a working day, has been offline for extra than two weeks soon after a ability outage.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum assessment with the gas-financial savings app GasBuddy, cautioned that with other “important refinery concerns persisting across many regions” and the eventual changeover to the summer blend of gasoline, price boosts are probable in March and April.
“1 of the most crucial components to how a lot fuel prices will climb is how rapidly and successfully refiners can finish their pre-summertime maintenance, start out generating EPA-mandated summer time gasoline, and develop up offer of it in advance of Memorial Day,” De Haan wrote on the web Monday.
The summertime mix of gas is a lot more high priced to create than the wintertime blend. The Panhandle continued to have the cheapest typical fuel rates, which include $3.07 a gallon Tuesday in the Panama City region. In distinction, motorists in the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton location paid an average of $3.51.
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