California Gas Hits $7

One gas station in California is selling gasoline for $7 per gallon, much higher than the state's average of about $5.42 per gallon.

Scott Budman posted an image of prices on X, formerly Twitter, that one station in Menlo Park was selling a gallon for $7.29.

Reached via X, Budman noted that station may not be typical.

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"It's rare, but that gas station in Menlo Park is [as of Sunday] back above $7 a gallon," he said in a message to Newsweek.

The context

Gas prices in California are above the national average. As of April 23, the national average price per gallon for regular gas was $3.67. Prices have ticked up on the back of tensions in the Middle East that pushed up oil prices, according to AAA, but declining demand may keep prices flat going forward.

"The situation overseas with war in both the Middle East and Ukraine has the oil market on edge," Andrew Gross, AAA spokesperson, said in a statement last week. "But this is also the time of year we may see a bit of a lull in gasoline demand between the end of spring breaks and ahead of Memorial Day."

In California, however, prices average $5.42, higher than last year's $4.90.

What we know

Budman's post alluded to prices in Menlo Park. Prices there appear to be at near to $6 per gallon, according to autoblog.com.

A search via GasBuddy showed that one station in the area sold regular gas for $7.29 per gallon. Another station, according to the platform that curates gas prices, was selling regular gas close to $6.90 per gallon as early Tuesday morning ET.

Most of the stations in Menlo Park, according to GasBuddy, were in the range of $5 to $6 per gallon.

Views

Part of the reason that California gas prices are higher than the national average is high production costs.

"Throw in regularly scheduled maintenance that will occur at two critical refineries in May and the normal penchant for speculative buying in global markets in the second quarter, and you have wholesale prices that have gone ballistic," Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, told Yahoo Finance.

What's next

Global oil prices may cool over the coming weeks, a shift that may help to lower prices at the pump, including in California.

"Any student of petroleum history recognizes that these relationships won't persist," Kloza said. "A correction for gasoline, and perhaps for crude, looms and it almost certainly will occur in the next 30 days."