Spring Break just got a lot more expensive: Coastal SC gas prices jump 43 cents in a week
Myrtle Beach gas prices just saw their scariest spike yet this year — rising 43 cents in the last week to an average of $3.89 per gallon on Monday.
The price per gallon is now 71 cents higher than a month ago and $1.34 higher than a year ago, according to GasBuddy, which tracks fuel prices at gas stations across the nation.
Until now, the gap between this year’s prices and last year’s had been narrowing because the rate of the fuel price increase was finally beginning to settle down.
That’s not the case anymore.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is begin the hike. Fears over fuel supply crunches related to the war — Russia is one of the largest fossil fuel producers in the world — have made oil and gas ever more expensive.
While the U.S. has taken steps to cut off the purchase of Russian fuel, which only makes up a small part of the nation’s energy supply, fuel worries in other countries has driven up the cost of oil and gas globally, experts say.
Before the war began, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan noted that the U.S. might reach the $4 per gallon mark for average gasoline prices, a line the country had not crossed in years. But that changed from a “might happen” to a “did happen” last Friday.
“There are few words to describe the unprecedented rise in gasoline prices over the last week, with massive spikes coast to coast in both gasoline and diesel prices, as oil prices jump to their highest since 2008,” De Haan said in a press release Monday. “Forget the $4 per gallon mark, the nation will soon set new all-time record highs and we could push closer to a national average of $4.50/gal.
The dramatic rise in gasoline prices comes as spring breakers are trickling into Myrtle Beach, marking the beginning of the Grand Strand’s busy season.
In the last week, U.S. fuel prices rose slightly faster than they did in Myrtle Beach, increasing an average of 47 cents per gallon to $4.06 on Monday. The nation is now less than five cents away from it’s all-time average high of $4.10 cents on July 17, 2008. The first time the nation ever cracked $4 per gallon was just a month before that on June 8, 2008.
“This is a milestone that was hard to imagine happening so quickly, but with bipartisan support of severe sanctions on Russia, is not exactly surprising - it is the cost of choking off Russia from energy revenue,” De Haan said in a press release Friday. “As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to evolve and we head into a season where gas prices typically increase, Americans should prepare to pay more for gas than they ever have before. Shopping and paying smart at the pump will be critical well into summer.”
For both Myrtle Beach and the U.S. as a whole, gas prices have not been this high in early spring for more than a decade. Until last May, the U.S. had not gone above average of $3 per gallon of gasoline since 2014.
“We’ve never been in this situation before, with this level of uncertainty,” De Haan said in the press release. “As we lose a major global producer under the weight of deserving bipartisan sanctions for invading a sovereign country, the cost is high. Americans will be feeling the pain of the rise in prices for quite some time, with little good news foreseen.”
Not necessarily bad for Myrtle Beach tourism
While gas prices will definitely make trips to the pump much more painful, Myrtle Beach tourism experts say it doesn’t necessarily mean people will cancel their trips to the Grand Strand.
In fact, the rising fuel prices could drive more visitors here as travelers look to save on vacations and seek out locales like Myrtle Beach that are known for being more affordable. Just because the cost of a vacation is more expensive doesn’t mean people will stop traveling, experts say, especially after two years of off and on COVID-19 shut downs.
“It’s counterintuitive,” Coastal Carolina University hospitality professor Taylor Damonte told The Sun News last month. “But gas has been a higher price than it is now here and nationwide. And still, even during those times, we did not see a negative correlation between pricing, fuel pricing and demand.”
Surfside Beach, for example, was named recently as one of the top affordable beach vacation destinations in the country by HomeToGo, a marketplace for short-term vacation rentals such as condos and homes, as part of the company’s annual Beach Price Index.
“After a long and unseasonably cold winter, many travelers are looking to escape to sunny beach destinations to make warm memories this spring,” HomeToGo spokeswoman Caroline Burns said in a press release late last month.
Prices are not uber expensive everywhere you go.
As of yesterday, the cheapest gas station in the state was $2.89 while the most expensive was charging $4.99, according to GasBuddy, which did not provide the locations of those stations.
Here are how gas prices look in other areas.
South Carolina — $3.86/g, up 40.4 cents per gallon from last week’s $3.46/g.
- North Carolina — $3.99/g, up 44.2 cents per gallon from last week’s $3.54/g.
- Fayetteville, N.C. — $3.90/g, up 36.9 cents per gallon from last week’s $3.53/g.
GasBuddy said it expects gas prices to continue going up, especially as the nation hasn’t reached the peak summertime travel demand.
Here are some of the factors that will propel prices upward to $4.25 per gallon average by Memorial Day.
- Increased demand for fuel
- Refinery maintenance and switching to summer blend gas
- Geopolitical tensions, including the invasion of Ukraine and a refusal by other major oil producing countries to ramp up production more quickly
Rising fuel costs could easily effect the price of everyday goods and services, as well.
The price of diesel rose by 22 cents per gallon last Friday alone, the highest single day increase ever. The previous record was a 16 cent single day increase in 2013.
“2022 may be filled with curve balls and new challenges as motorists see their annual fuel expenses rise yet again, but there is some measure of relief that we will see. It’s largely thanks to high oil prices incentivizing additional oil production from oil producers for eventual relief,” De Haan said in GasBuddy’s revised 2022 Fuel Price Outlook.
“The supply and demand system may not be perfect, but it works. Until then, motorists will be forced to chalk up more of their hard-earned money to keep up with their insatiable thirst for gasoline.”
This story was originally published March 7, 2022 at 2:08 PM.
