California gas prices spike above $4 in some markets due to oil shortage

California gas prices rose as high as $4.30

While gas prices nationwide are on a downward trend, California gas prices in some parts of Los Angeles have topped $4 a gallon, but analysts say relief may be on the way.

Relief may be on the way for California gas prices.

A shortage in oil and other components used in refining California’s unique blend of less-polluting gas was one of the reasons for the price jump, industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday.

A slowdown in imported crude and a refinery shutdown in Torrance also caused wholesale California gas prices to skyrocket, experts said.

The highest average price in the nation was $3.66 a gallon in Los Angeles as of Friday – a jump of 9 cents, according to Lundberg’s bi-weekly survey. But California gas prices rose another 13 cents in a special survey conducted Saturday, she said.

This resulted in wildly different prices even in the same areas. Two competing gas stations in the Woodland Hills neighbourhood of Los Angeles, which normally charge about the same price, were 58 cents apart on Saturday afternoon, according to City News Service. A gallon cost $3.72 at one station, and $4.30 at the other.

Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at Gas Buddy, told the Los Angeles Times that California had become unattractive to foreign suppliers because prices had been dropping for months.

However the worst effects of the California gas prices spike were already easing Sunday as foreign wholesalers moved quickly to bring their product into the state, Lundberg said.

“Exports from outside the state in the U.S. and abroad did not have a great incentive to come in, but now they do,” she said.

Nationwide, the average price of gasoline dropped 2 cents over the past two weeks to $2.83 a gallon. The average national price for midgrade gas was $3.05, with premium going for $3.22, according to the Lundberg survey.

The cheapest price recorded in the continental United States was $2.42 a gallon in Jackson, Mississippi.