Gas prices still good, and much better than 11 years ago, says AAA Kansas

Prices may have gone up a touch lately in Kansas at the pump, but it could be a lot worse.

“On this date 11 years ago, July 16, 2008, we recorded the highest average Kansas gas price ever,” said Shawn Steward with AAA Kansas. “That was $4.02 a gallon.”

Prices as of Tuesday are at $2.54 a gallon on average.

“Prices have increased a little bit over the last couple of weeks, mainly due to more expensive crude oil prices globally,” said Steward. “We’ve seen demand tick up and the decrease in gasoline stocks that we have on hand.”

Kansas is doing well relative to the rest of the country, even though the weather hasn’t been our friend.

“Hurricane Barry, which made landfall over the weekend seems to have had little impact on the national average, despite the storm temporarily halting about 60% of crude oil production in the Gulf last week,” said Steward. “We anticipate those to come back online fairly quickly, but, until then, crude oil stocks in this region could be tightened temporarily.”

Kansas is the 9th least expensive state for gasoline this week.