Florida’s gas prices surge above national average

Florida’s gas prices are now above the national average, with the majority of the state at over $3.40 per gallon. And while that can impact your daily commute, businesses that rely on gas are being hit especially hard.

Denise Houghtaling, the vice president of MW Horticulture, says the business has around a dozen machines, some of which burn 50 gallons of gas every hour. Hearing that we may see the highest gas prices since 2014 is a major concern, and the recent increase has led MW to raise its prices which in the long raises prices for consumers.

“Fuel is upwards of about 13% of our total cost, yeah,” Houghtaling said. “Which is a big, big chunk when you’re looking at all the costs of the operating business…  there’s certain machines that we use in our yard that we definitely have looked at differently since the fuel prices have gone up… determined, you know, when we can use them, when we can’t.

Houghtaling says the company put GPS monitors in its trucks to make sure they’re choosing the routes that use the least mileage and also checking the tire pressure on machines daily.

Florida’s pump pain has to do with the possibility of Russia invading Ukraine and what that will do to Russian oil production. Globally, oil is the highest it’s been since 2014, averaging around $88 a barrel. Patrick De Haan, a senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy says we could see gas prices across Florida approach $4 per gallon or even higher by Memorial Day. The average price of gas in Lee County is currently $3.37 per gallon.

The price of gas typically increases in March, April and May because demand goes up, but these rising geopolitical tensions are not helping.

“The problem is that we could see additional increases because of what’s going on if there’s an invasion of ukraine by Russia that could push prices up even more dramatically,” De Haan said. “Russia is the second-largest oil producer in the world, and the U.S. has promised that it would respond with some measure of sanctions, and Russia could retaliate by withholding oil supply. They produce about 9 million barrels of oil per day. ”

There is good news: De Haan says if there’s not an invasion, we could see some type of price relief in the third and fourth quarters of the year.