NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The impact of the pipeline outage resulting from the leak in Kansas on Wednesday isn't known yet, according to Shawn Steward with AAA Kansas.
"The closure in the Keystone pipeline that we've seen the last few days due to the leak in northern Kansas has certainly got the industry watching," Steward said. "We're not sure exactly what the impact of that will be yet. It will certainly depend on how long that pipeline is shut down."
Before the leak, fundamentals were looking really good to keep gas prices dropping across the country.
"Demand has been low for a while," Steward said. "We're at about 7% lower than where we were a year ago in terms of gasoline demand. Total domestic gasoline stocks rose significantly in the most recent reporting period. You couple those things together and you're seeing a pretty strong decline in gas prices over the last month or two. We're at $2.94 a gallon on average in Kansas today, that's down five cents just from Monday."
The drop in demand is what was typical pre-pandemic.
"That's what we're seeing this year," Steward said. "We tend to have fewer people out driving, especially when we start seeing winter weather. We haven't seen much of that yet in Kansas."
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