Hawaii gas price second highest amid mainland disruption

Hawaii motorists received a good news/bad news jolt this week regarding pain at the gas pump.

The good news: Hawaii’s geographic isolation protected consumers from gasoline shortages in many southeastern states caused by the forced shutdown of a massive pipeline that lasted five days and began reopening Wednesday.

The bad news: The islands’ geographic isolation helped Hawaii maintain its usual rank as the state with the highest or second-­highest price for gas.

Even with the dramatic mainland supply disruption, southeastern states still had far cheaper gas than Hawaii, though many motorists there could not buy gas in part because of panic buying.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday tried to reassure Americans that there was no need to hoard fuel as Reuters reported fistfights at gas stations and some states declared emergencies over the gas distribution problem that was caused by a ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline’s roughly 5,500-mile distribution system stretching from Texas to New Jersey.

Insira, a local music producer filling up his car’s tank Wednesday in Honolulu, said he heard stories from his parents, who live on the East Coast, about people using trash bags as emergency gasoline containers.

Insira, who goes by only one name, was making a normal stop at a gas station and expected no supply or price impacts on gas in Hawaii from the mainland pipeline disruption.

But some Hawaii consumers, who have been prone to deplete stores of toilet paper, rice and other staple commodities over shortage fears, suspected there could be some kind of tangential negative impact on gas locally — higher prices — because of what had been a growing problem in many mainland states until Wednesday.

John McMillan, an agricultural scientist on Oahu, said it’s a rational fear that some clog in a complex supply chain will have a far-reaching result in pushing up prices, especially for a commodity that most people have to buy on a regular basis.

“Gas prices are higher here, but they are usually higher than the mainland,” he said during a routine stop at a gas station in Hawaii Kai. “It’s supply and demand.”

Jeff Spring, a AAA spokesman, said Hawaii gas prices are higher now than they were a week ago, a month ago and a year ago primarily because more people are driving.

“There are just more folks going back to work,” he said. “More people are commuting. Tourism is increasing. The Colonial Pipeline shouldn’t have any impact at all on Hawaii.”

The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in Hawaii was $3.84 Wednesday. That’s up from $3.81 a week ago, $3.72 a month ago, and $3.17 a year ago when prices were falling due to a drop in demand caused by tamped-down tourism and scores of people working from home amid the coronavirus health crisis.

California, which isn’t served by the Colonial Pipeline, had the nation’s highest average gas price at $4.11 a gallon.

Spring said California and Hawaii typically joust for the highest price often within 5 cents to 15 cents of each other.

In states hardest hit by the gas supply disruption, the price of gas was mainly up 10 cents to 20 cents from a week ago but still below the national average of $3 a gallon.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for gas price comparison service firm GasBuddy, said retail gas outages Wednesday were the greatest in North Carolina, where 68% of stations were out of gas. The average price there was $2.85, up from $2.69 a week earlier.

Next hardest hit, according to De Haan, was Virginia where 49% of stations were out of gas. The average price there was $2.87, up from $2.74 a week earlier.

Other states with heavy impacts included Georgia and South Carolina with 45% of stations depleted.

In Florida, where GasBuddy reported 14% of gas stations had no gas, the average price was $2.89, just 2 cents more than a week earlier.