Why are gas prices rising in Ohio? Pipeline shutdown won’t cause shortages here

Dri­vers fill­ing their tanks in Ohio haven’t seen par­tic­u­lar­ly dra­mat­ic spikes in gas prices as nation­al hikes and short­ages fol­low the shut­down of a major U. S. pipeline over the week­end, but AAA expects prices will con­tin­ue to rise in the state.

Accord­ing to the AAA web­site, the nation­al aver­age for gas prices sur­passed $3 on Wednes­day morn­ing. Ohio sits about 13 cents under the nation­al aver­age — but state aver­ages rose 4 cents overnight, from $2.83 on Tues­day to $2.87 on Wednesday.

A cyber­se­cu­ri­ty attack on the colo­nial Pipeline, which pro­vides 45% of East Coast fuel, led the com­pa­ny to shut down oper­a­tions last Fri­day. It restart­ed Wednesday.

As of Wednes­day morn­ing, Colum­bus and Cleve­land prices were on par with the state aver­age, while Cincin­nati was slight­ly high­er. Two weeks ago, one gal­lon of gas cost around $2.80 in Columbus.

Will there be gas shortages in Ohio?

While the cost of fuel is trend­ing upward in Ohio and around the coun­try, AAA Ohio Auto Club Senior Man­ag­er of Pub­lic Affairs Kim­ber­ly Schwind said Ohio is not pre­dict­ed to see any short­ages as a result of the shut­tered pipeline.

“It’s a very region­al thing,” Schwind said in an inter­view. “The sup­ply con­cern has been expect­ed for the coastal states.”

Patrick De Haan, head of petro­le­um analy­sis at gas sta­tion price check­er app Gas­Bud­dy, wrote in an email Tues­day evening that short­ages in Ohio would be “sur­pris­ing, but not impossible.”

As peo­ple lined up to fill their tanks in some South­east states expe­ri­enc­ing short­ages, Schwind urged against pan­ic-buy­ing gas.

“We have to keep in mind that there is ample gaso­line sup­ply in the Unit­ed States,” she said. “This is not a sup­ply issue, it’s more of a logis­tics issue in actu­al­ly get­ting the gaso­line where it needs to be.”

Ohio Petro­le­um Mar­keters and Con­ve­nience Store Asso­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Rhoads said gas sta­tions are start­ing to see an increase in demand for gas, even though the state is not expect­ed to face sup­ply prob­lems result­ing from the pipeline closure.