An Indiana refinery is being blamed for a dramatic increase in gas prices.
In Galion, rates were as high as $2.89 per gallon on Friday morning, a jump of 85 cents per gallon last week.
AAA officials said a crude distillation unit outage at BP’s Witing refinery in Indiana, the largest refinery in the Midwest.
“Ohio’s gas prices are largely tied to the Chicago market, which is prone to wild swings in prices,” AAA Senior Public Relations Manager Kimberly Schwind said. “Spot prices in this market were among the lowest in the country just last week, but have since jumped to some of the highest in the country.”
Schwind says the issue won’t resolve quickly.
“Chicago spot prices have jumped more than 85 cents since news of the outage at BP Witing’s largest crude distillation unit hit early this week,” Schwind said. “This outage could reportedly take a month or so to fix. While there is a lot of speculation about the extent of the damage, it is clear that the market expects this to be a problem for at least a few weeks.”
According to the AAA, the last time Ohio’s average gas price was near $3 a gallon was Oct. 23, 2014. The national average gas price last hit $3 a gallon on Oct. 31, 2014.
On this date last year, Ohioans were paying an average of $3.51 a gallon and the national average was $3.47 a gallon.
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Pugh is the Group Content Editor for the Galion Inquirer, Bellville Star, Morrow County Sentinel and Knox County Citizen. You can reach him at [email protected] and on Twitter at @pughcivitas.
