By Stephanie Schaerr
Utah will not suffer the same hikes in gas prices as states farther east in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, according to a AAA spokeswoman.
As Katrina rips through refineries and pipelines in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, much of the nation?s oil supply has come under speculation, causing prices to rise.
Most of the oil used in Utah, however, comes from refineries in Utah, Wyoming, Canada and the rest of the Intermountain region ? not the Gulf Coast, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
?Utah is a rather isolated and insulated area,? said Roylayne Fairclough, Utah AAA spokeswoman. ?We are not completely dependent on [the Gulf Coast] area for oil.?
Though President Bush has announced the release of some crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, experts at the Department of Energy say that an oil shortage is not the main problem.
According to Fairclough, the country now lacks refinery capacity, not oil. Typically, oil is imported from abroad but processed into gasoline here in the United States.
That said, Utahns could still expect increasing prices at the pump. Despite the end of summer travel season after Labor Day, AAA expects September to be the worst month for gas prices this year. It is possible that drivers can expect to pay $3 per gallon in the near future.
Glade Sowards at the Utah State Energy Program, said the idea is ?certainly possible.?
Though Utah has had the lowest or second lowest gasoline prices in the past few weeks, those prices are expected to keep rising. It is impossible to predict how long the price increases will last, but Sowards expects that they will continue into the fall.
Sowards suggests car-pooling, keeping cars maintained and tires fully inflated as ways to get the maximum amount of miles out of each tank of gas. Websites such as AAA.com provide lists of the cheapest gas in the area.
