After several weeks of drifting downward, gas prices in the Lehigh Valley and Pennsylvania are rising again due to the return of imposed immobility of ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and a threatened blockade of Saudi ports in the Red Sea.
The state average reached $4.199 Tuesday, according to AAA reports. The automobile association reports prices at both the county and metropolitan area level. Prices in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties range from $3.986 in north-central Cameron County to $4.309 in Fayette, home of Fallingwater and Ohiopyle State Park.
With the exception of Philadelphia, prices are generally cheapest in the eastern part of the state, steadily rising as one travels west toward Ohio or West Virginia.
Tuesday’s survey shows Carbon County with the lowest average in the region, at $4.08, followed by $4.131 in Northampton, $4.161 in Lehigh, and $4.179 in Monroe.
The average for the multicounty Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metropolitan area is $4.14, up 21 cents from a week ago, 35 cents from a month ago, and $1.10 from this time last year. In practical terms, it costs $62.10 to put 15 gallons of regular gas in your tank in the Lehigh Valley today, $16.49 more than the $45.62 it cost at this time last year.
Pennsylvania has the notoriety of being the most expensive state to buy gas anywhere east of the Rocky Mountains, and the eighth most expensive of the 50 states and District of Columbia.
You would have to travel to Arizona to find a more expensive place to fill your tank. Conversely, Indiana has the lowest average price by far — $3.34, according to AAA’s numbers, which is 86 cents cheaper than Pennsylvania.
The average price across the Delaware River in New Jersey is $4.09, ranging from a low of $4.02 in Warren County opposite Easton, to $4.187 in Cape May, the Garden State’s southernmost county.
The Department of Energy publishes weekly summaries of fuel prices, production and inventory in various multistate regions across the county. The Energy Information Administration’s numbers for the Central Atlantic region include Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Monday’s report shows the average conventional formulation of regular gas was $4.18 in the wider region, up from $3.98 last week, but still off from the recent high of $4.58 on May 11.
The region started the year with prices just above $3 per gallon, a year-to-date increase of 38%.
The petroleum industry use the price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate oil as the benchmark for U.S. prices. WTI started the month with a closing price of $68.08 per barrel. It has risen 22.2% since then, closing at $78.01 Monday. The price peaked at $112.61 on April 6, making Monday’s closing price 30% lower than the year’s high.
The oil futures market indicates prices are more likely to keep rising than falling over the short term, up a little more than 1%, according to Business Insider.