St. George's gas average pushes past $5 per gallon. Is the state next?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

St. George's gas prices exceed $5 per gallon, the highest among Utah's metro areas.
Statewide average nears $5, with some counties already surpassing the milestone.
High crude oil prices and demand contribute to rising fuel costs in Utah.

SALT LAKE CITY — The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline has now surpassed $5 in the St. George area, according to AAA, and the statewide average is creeping in that direction, too.

The metro area's average was listed at just over $5 per gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA's gas price index. It's the first of five metro areas that the organization tracks in Utah to reach the $5 mark since the latest surge began.

Averages within the Logan, Ogden, Provo-Orem and Salt Lake City metros ranged between $4.92 and $4.94 per gallon on Tuesday, while the statewide average is approximately $4.96 per gallon.

Some counties had already leapt past the dreaded $5 average, led by Piute County at $5.34. Beaver, Daggett, Duchesne, Grand, San Juan, Sanpete, Summit, Rich, Washington and Wayne counties have already met or exceeded the mark, as of Tuesday.

Garfield County, Piute's southern neighbor, has the lowest average at $4.89 per gallon at the moment. Utah's premium gas average has surged to $5.48 per gallon, while diesel is up to $6.56 — continuing to blaze new state records, per the index.

Experts point to high crude oil prices for the pain at the pump, which ties back to the U.S.'s ongoing conflict with Iran.

"Crude oil remains high, averaging $100 per barrel amid continued volatility in the Strait of Hormuz," said Doug Johnson, a spokesperson for AAA Mountain West Group, in a statement on Thursday, adding that while gasoline supply has increased in the U.S., so has the demand.

Utah's average regular gas price has only reached $5 per gallon once before, which happened four years ago.

It peaked at a record $5.26 per gallon on July 1, 2022, amid other global tensions. Russia's invasion of Ukraine that year sent an immediate surge in prices, while GasBuddy reported that an "energy crunch" in other foreign countries also factored into a jump in global demand.

The latest uptick has left many Utah drivers frustrated.

"It's kinda brutal to get around right now," one driver told KSL last week.

Approximately 4 out of every 5 drivers surveyed said costs have changed their habits, LendingTree reported last month. That includes driving less, carpooling or hunting for the best deals, among other strategies.

It's unclear when the saga will end. Various financial companies have warned this month that crude oil prices could continue to increase, NBC News reported on Friday. It added that there are no signs that traffic within the Strait of Hormuz in Iran will return to levels that existed before the war began as the saga continues.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.