A Longer Wait For Montana to Decrease Gas Prices

Gas Prices are still on the rise in the North West. Senior Petroleum Analyst Greg Laskoski explains why Montana, along with other states are seeing a slight increase at the pump.

"Believe it or not, the average price of gas saw a just a nominal increase not only in Montana, but in a number of the western states," Laskoski said. "This is because of significant problems occurring with imports on the west coast. As a result, we saw a national average increase from $2.76 to $2.77 a gallon over the past week."

Laskoski says that California is hit hardest by the import problems, but western states like Montana are still seeing an increase of a few cents as well. However, Laskoski is hopeful that the state fueling prices will start to decrease.

"I do believe that in Montana we will start to see these prices declining," Laskoski said. "It won’t be a sharp decline over the summer it might just be a penny or two per gallon week after week. Once we end the summer and put Labor Day weekend behind us, that’s when we will start to see a more pronounced decline in retail gas prices."

Retail gas Prices this month are around 9 cents higher than a month ago, but are still around 80 cents lower than they were a year ago.