The impact from Tropical Storm Cindy and Hurricane Dennis can be seen in the price increases this week. Refineries were operating at 96.2% capacity--nearly 2% less than last week.
As of July 8, the Midwest gasoline stock level was skirting below the normal range with 50.3 million barrels. With production and supply levels down, Nebraska's retail gasoline price jumped 10 cents from last week to $2.32 with metro prices ranging from $2.27 in Columbus to $2.35 in Grand Island and Lincoln. Price records were broken each day in one or more of the following cities: Grand Island, Kearney, and Norfolk. Weekly averages in the metros jumped 8 to 15 cents per gallon from last week, and the state average was 44 cents higher than the price at this time last year. This week, the Midwest Region saw the largest regional increase of 12.2 cents reaching $2.32 per gallon.
While Columbus had a midweek price decrease, Nebraska's diesel average still jumped 7 cents from last week to reach $2.44 per gallon. Columbus' weekly average fell 3 cents while the other metros jumped 5 to 11 cents per gallon. None of the April 2005 diesel price records remained at the end of the week with record highs taking daily beatings. Metro prices ranged from $2.30 in Columbus to $2.48 in North Platte. According to the weekly price report, this week's state average is 67 cents higher than the price at this time last year. On the supply side, the Midwest distillate fuel inventory level was in the normal range with 22.3 million barrels as of July 8.
An archive of this report and historical weekly prices are available.
