HUTCHINSON — Shawn Steward with AAA Kansas notes that the price of gas is still tough to predict from week to week.
"This week in Kansas, we are at $3.41 a gallon," Steward said. "That's up slightly, about five cents from where we were a week ago, but ten cents lower than where we were a month ago. I think this week is just indicative of what we've seen throughout basically the entire year for 2022. That's lots of fluctuations, market volatility is still the name of the game."
"Right now, there's some concerns over Russian oil production cuts and what that can mean for global supplies of oil, and thus gasoline," Steward said. "The rise could be short-lived, as there's reports of new COVID-19 restrictions in China, that could signal a potential economic slowdown for the world's top oil consuming nation."
In a pre-COVID winter, prices would have been expected to drop anyway.
"Winter months are lower demand periods for gasoline, just fewer people out driving, as the weather starts getting cold and we start dealing with winter weather, typically that's going to bring less demand for gas."
Also, the winter blend of gasoline is usually a little less expensive to refine than the cleaner burning summer blend.