Motorists are doing legwork

More are studying the price boards before pulling into a station.
By DON SHILLING
and CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS STAFF
The next time he pulls into a gas station, Gene Rice says he'll check the sign first.
"This makes me mad," he said Thursday as he pumped regular unleaded gas into his pickup truck at a cost of $2.07 a gallon.
He didn't notice the price at the Speedway on Mahoning Avenue in Youngstown until the pump started running.
"If I'd have seen it sooner, I wouldn't have stopped," said Rice, 55, of Liberty.
Lots of drivers are keeping a closer eye on signs outside stations as gas prices begin to creep up again. While the Speedway prices were more than $2 a gallon, prices at many other area stations are within pennies of that level.
Prices can be a bit cheaper at Salt Springs Road in Weathersfield Township. While Sheetz and BP were charging $1.97 Thursday, Pilot posted a price of $1.93 and Mr. Fuel was at $1.91 for regular unleaded gas.
The average per-gallon price for the Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area hit $1.99 Thursday, still shy of the record price of $2.06 set May 26 of this year, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.
The price of a gallon of regular gas at some stations that had risen to above $2 Thursday had dropped back down under $2 this morning.
Reaction
Leonard Patrone, 81, of Youngstown, said he isn't going to pay $2 a gallon if he doesn't have to. He walked out of the Speedway convenience store with a few items but wasn't paying for gas.
"I keep my eyes open for that. If I can save 6 cents a gallon, I'll do it."
The high prices mean he's staying home more.
"I told my wife, 'One or two days a week, we're not going anywhere,'" he said.
Karen Precurato, 33, of Austintown, said she and her daughter are going out less, too, because the cost of filling up her car has risen from $15 to $25.
"We stay home as much as we can," she said.
A couple of people shrugged off the $2 gas, however, saying they had just moved back to the Mahoning Valley from other cities. They said they have been paying more than $2 for some time.
"Everything is so cheap here," said Kim Balser, 48, of Youngstown, who moved here from Baltimore two weeks ago.
Even so, as she pumped gas at $2.07, she wondered if she should have gone to BP.
"I thought, 'Darn, I should've crossed the street,'" she said. "But what's 10 cents with all that traffic and everything."
The reasons
While gas price increases last spring were related to developments within the United States, this time they're more connected to international developments said Dr. A.F. Alhajji, an associate professor and energy economist at Ohio Northern University.
Hurricane damage to oil well sites in the Gulf of Mexico, a labor dispute in Norway, political instability and labor strikes in Nigeria are all having an effect, he said.
Alhajji said the world's oil producers are making just enough oil to accommodate what is used, so any disruption in supply will cause prices to rise.
That's why some crude oil prices have reached $54 a barrel over the past few weeks.
"We're maxed out," Alhajji said. "If we have a disruption of supplies anywhere in the world, we are heading for even higher prices."
The energy expert estimates that gasoline prices jump 2.4 cents per gallon for every $1 increase in the average cost of a barrel of oil.
Price gauge
Cleveland's average price for unleaded gas hit $2 Thursday for the first time since early June, said Brian Newbacher, director of public affairs for AAA Ohio Motorists Association. The Youngstown-Warren area generally falls close behind the Cleveland area in AAA's daily gas price gauge.
AAA lobbyists are working to hold down gas prices, Newbacher said, by lobbying lawmakers to limit the number of special gasoline blends required by some states for environmental reasons.
Gasoline producers have to make 15 blends of what Newbacher called "boutique" fuels, and he argued that the number of different products required increases production costs.
"Streamlining the system would help to reduce consumers' cost at the pump," he added.
vinarsky@vindy.com