Will gas prices hit $3? Albert thinks not

AAA Northeast’s senior vice president of public affairs Lloyd Albert said Wednesday that he doesn’t expect gas prices to get up to $3.00 in the coming months.

But with the average gas price in the state now at $2.82, drivers around the city who took to the pumps yesterday, in the midst of an 87-degree day that prompted many to crank up their air conditioners, weren’t happy with the increasing prices.

Linda Sullivan, who lives in Gaspee Point, was putting $60 of gas at $2.80 per gallon in her Lincoln Navigator at the Speedway on Airport Road. She manages a horse farm in Lincoln and said that part of her job is to transport the horses using her own car by pulling them in a horse trailer down to the tracks in Escohoag, which is in West Greenwich. So she drives from Warwick to Lincoln to West Greenwich and then back to Lincoln, and she said that rising gas prices have a huge effect on her daily routine.

“When it was in the $2 range, I was able to go down every day on $50 a week,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to go as much if the prices rise.”

Sullivan also said that higher prices will impact her summer plans, since she tries to go to Bonnet Shores beach as much as she can over the summer. She said that with higher gas prices she’ll have to cut some other non-necessities out of her family’s routine, like going out to dinner.

David Carlson, a Warwick resident who recently moved here from Cape Cod, offered a similar sentiment as he stopped at the Cumberland Farms in Apponaug to put gas into his friend’s motorcycle he was driving that day.

“It stinks,” he said about high gas prices. “When I lived on the Cape I was driving here to visit family in my Nissan Altima and it just sucked.”

Omar Wellaih, who’s worked at the One Energy gas station on Warwick Avenue for the past three years, where the price is currently $2.82 per gallon, said that he doesn’t expect rising prices to cause people to change their travel habits.

“People complain, but it doesn’t really change their habits,” he said. “They’re not going to stop driving their cars just because prices went up.”

Albert said that prices rise between April and June every year because summer-blend gasoline is two or three pennies per gallon more expensive than winter-blend gasoline, and because the gas stations raise their prices in the peak summer drive time.

But he also said that this year is different because OPEC, the organization of petroleum exporting countries, have gotten together to control the gas supply and raise prices. There has been an increase in crude oil prices because of this, he said, going from $48 per barrel several months ago to nearly $70 a barrel now at West Texas Intermediate, the leading gasoline distributor in the United States. He said that Rhode Island imports gasoline from them and this has partly caused an increase in price.

He said that although it’s hard to gauge what will happen in the coming months with all the variables involved, OPEC is meeting in the coming weeks to discuss prices and that will have an effect if they make any changes.

However, Albert thinks that the price won’t get as high as $3 a gallon, though he does anticipate the price to increase over the next two months, “then hopefully level out or go down.”

Despite the rising prices, Albert doesn’t expect people’s driving habits to change. That is, unless the price per gallon hits $3.

“Three dollars, psychologically, is a big number for people,” he said. “We’re under that now, and I don’t see it going to three dollars this summer.”

He said that for people going on summer road trips, at least those going eight hours or less, it may only cost an extra 20 to 25 dollars for gasoline, and that won’t stop people from traveling.

“We anticipate a very positive travel season this year,” he said.

As for ways to save on gasoline as prices continue to increase, Albert said the best thing to do is shop around at different stations nearby.

“Don’t wait until you’re on empty,” he said. “There are price variations [in Rhode Island] as much as 30 cents a gallon. Go online and Google local gas prices. It’s that easy.”