Gas prices in Nevada continue to fall, but lag behind other states

As the coronavirus outbreak has reduced demand for crude oil and driven prices lower, retail gas prices have also tumbled.

Gas prices in Nevada are inching toward $2 per gallon. The last time the Silver State saw prices at the $2 per gallon mark was February 2016, according to AAA spokesman Sergio Avila.

Few people are flying or driving, and factories have closed amid widespread stay-at-home orders, leading to a glut in the global oil market. At the same time, oil producers can’t slow their production fast enough, and all the extra crude means storage tanks are quickly running out of room.

The cost of U.S. oil to be delivered in June plunged 43 percent Tuesday to $11.57 a barrel. That’s the part of the market that oil traders are focused on and trading most actively.

For oil to be delivered in May, which is when storage tanks could top out, the price stood at $10.01 a barrel. A day earlier, it fell below zero for the first time, meaning traders paid others to take oil off their hands to get rid of the headache of finding where to store it.

Cheap oil means cheaper prices at the pump. The average price for regular unleaded gasoline in Nevada was $2.37 per gallon on Tuesday, down 7 cents from a week earlier and nearly $1 from a year earlier, according to AAA. In the Las Vegas Valley the average price was slightly higher Tuesday at $2.44 per gallon.

“It’s still too early to tell what the impact will be on gas prices given the recent news around crude oil prices,” Avila said. “We do, however, expect prices to continue to drop in the state as the West has seen a huge drop in demand due to stay-at-home orders while increasing supply. Given the volatility of the crude oil market, it’s hard to say how low the price will go, but we’re continuing to monitor the market.”

Fifth-highest price

Nevada remains one of the more expensive states for gas, according to AAA. The national average is $1.80 per gallon.

Some areas of the country are seeing prices inch toward $1 per gallon, but Nevada hasn’t reached that level since AAA began keeping records on gas prices there in 2000, Avila said.

The Silver State, which depends on California for its gasoline, has the fifth-highest average price for regular unleaded gas, behind Oregon ($2.47), Washington ($2.51), California ($2.80) and Hawaii ($3.23).

Wisconsin has the lowest price at $1.22 per gallon.

Still, valley motorists say they are happy to see any decrease at the pump, even when most aren’t driving as much.

Bob Hoffman, of Henderson, filled up his pickup at the Arco Rebel station at Paradise and Warm Springs roads Tuesday morning, paying $2.45 a gallon for regular unleaded. He said he recently was in Phoenix, where gas was down to $1.69 a gallon.

“They’ve come down, but we are still higher than other places,” Hoffman said.

Commuting times also drop

Hoffman also said the time he spends getting to and from work has dropped dramatically. Before the shutdown, he said, his commute could take up to an hour. Now it’s down to 30 minutes.

“Nonexistent traffic,” Hoffman said. “Its been unbelievable.”

Eric Cruz, of Las Vegas, questioned why many gas stations in Las Vegas were listing prices of around $2.40 a gallon when the price of crude was crashing on a global level.

“I thought it would be lower, especially with the price of oil crashing as much as it did in the past few days,” Cruz said. “It makes me curious as to how the gas prices are actually calculated. If crude oil prices are going down to negative, why aren’t gas prices following that same downward pricing?”

Avila said that changes in the price of crude oil don’t impact the price paid at the pump right away.

“It takes a few weeks for that cheaper crude to work its way through the distribution system to impact prices at the pump,” Avila said. “So if things change right away, the fluctuation at the pump may be negligible.”

Sam’s Club employee Shamrock Flanagan said prices at the wholesaler on East Serene Avenue in Las Vegas were “the lowest they’ve been in years” at $1.93 a gallon. Still, fewer motorists are coming in to fill up than before, making the pump stations at times “look like a ghost town.”

“There are hardly any lines anymore,” said David Quintanilla, of Las Vegas, as he filled up at Sam’s Club on East Serene. “In the mornings it used to be lines halfway around the building. Today was a good day. Got in, got out, got some gas.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter. The Associated Press and Review-Journal staff writers Glenn Puit and Katelyn Newberg contributed to this report.