Gas prices to continue downward trend
The cost should be about $2.45 a gallon on Oahu next week
Star-Bulletin staff
The maximum wholesale price for gasoline sold in Hawaii is going down for an eighth consecutive week.
Next week's price caps, set yesterday by the Public Utilities Commission, are 1 cent lower than current price ceilings. Since Oct. 17 the maximum price at which wholesale gas can be sold in Hawaii has dropped 90 cents.
By next week, assuming wholesalers charge the maximum allowed, the lowest price for regular unleaded is projected to be about $2.45 a gallon on Oahu. The highest price would be about $2.82 on Lanai.
The statewide average could dip to $2.62 a gallon.
Star-Bulletin projections include all taxes and an assumed dealer markup of 12 cents. Such markups vary among stations and are not governed by the price cap, leading to a variety of prices among dealers even within a few blocks of each other.
Hawaii's prices continue to lead the nation.
The statewide average for regular unleaded yesterday was $2.66, according to AAA's Fuel Gauge Report, which is based on credit card transactions from the previous day at 222 self-serve stations across the state.
Hawaii's average was 6 cents higher than the next-highest state, Alaska, and 52 cents above the national average, the auto club said.
Opponents say Hawaii's prices are higher than elsewhere because the cap artificially ties the state's prices to three mainland markets that otherwise would have no effect on the islands. Supporters say Hawaii's prices have always been higher than elsewhere and that the law is working as intended by forcing island prices to track more closely to mainland trends.
The price caps, set by the PUC each Wednesday, are based on an average of spot wholesale prices in the Gulf Coast, New York and Los Angeles, from the five business days leading up the weekly publishing date. Because of last week's Thanksgiving holiday, spot prices were not listed for Thursday and Friday.
For calculating the new price caps, the PUC used spot prices from last Monday and Tuesday to substitute for Thursday and Friday, even though those prices already were used in calculating the current price caps, said Lisa Kikuta, the commission's chief researcher.
A similar situation arose the week of Labor Day, when the PUC substituted one day of old price data in its calculation to make up for the holiday.
Lawmakers criticized the PUC for using the old data, arguing that the commission should have used a four-day average. The PUC argued that under the law it is required to base its calculations on a five-day average.