Montana Gas Prices Continue to Increase Due to Refinery Issues

While national gas prices are slowly slicing off a penny or two each week, Montana is still experiencing a slight increase.Petroleum analysis Will Speer explains how California may be the cause for our rising gas prices.

"In California for example, the refiners there had a hard time meeting the California gasoline speck and they saw prices rise there almost 70 cents in a week as a result," Speer said. "When you have prices spike like that you have areas like Washington trying to help out with their problem. And so, Washington, your neighbor, will then take barrels out of the market that potentially were helping out to keep the supply balanced in the Montana area."

Another factor in the steady week to week increase is refinery issues in Edmonton, Canada.

"It was just a small refinery blip, but the problem with that is it's more remote than some of these other places so its harder to get resupplied," Speer said.  "You'll have places like British Columbia trying to help out with some of their issues and so Washington barrels came to float to Vancouver as well to help out. So, either way it's single barrels that could have potentially been helping Montana gas prices going elsewhere."

Speer says Montana has not seen a decrease in state gas prices since late April; however, Montana gas prices are still 80 cents lower than they were last year.