SAN DIEGO — The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in San Diego County rose 1.7 cents Thursday to $3.74, one day after recording its largest increase since July 14, 2015, 6.7 cents, because of higher crude oil prices stemming from the weekend drone attacks on two major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
Prices in San Diego remained stable in the immediate aftermath of the attack, with prices virtually unchanged from Sunday to Monday. The average price of regular went up 1.5 cents a gallon Tuesday before surging on Wednesday.
If you want to know where to find cheap gas, the Arco off of Balboa in Kearny Mesa has some of the cheaper prices in San Diego, but the cheapest is Circle K on Genesee Avenue and Derrick Drive in Clairemont at $3.35 per gallon. Here's a list of the top 10 lowest gas prices in San Diego, according to GasBuddy.
The national average price for regular is $2.651 per gallon while the average price in California is $3.701 a gallon. Hawaii comes in second at $3.659 a gallon, according to AAA.
“Retailers don’t like to increase prices in spike amounts, like 10 or 12 cents a gallon, overnight because that’s not really good for their business — they get yelled at by all their customers,” said Jeffrey Spring, corporate communications manager for the Auto Club of Southern California. “And so we may see more of a moderate increase, 6 cents here, 7 cents there until we see how things shake out.”
The average price has risen 9.9 cents over the past three days and is 10.3 cents more than one week ago, 14.8 cents higher than one month ago and 10.2 cents greater than one year ago, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. It has risen 40.7 cents since the start of the year.
The price of crude oil accounts for two-thirds to three-quarters of the price of a gallon of gasoline, said Tupper Hull, vice president, strategic communications, of the Western States Petroleum Association, a trade association representing major oil companies in five Western states.
