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Rising Gas Prices Prompt Area Motorists to Conserve Fuel

Posted on: Wednesday, 17 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

Aug. 18--Record-high gasoline prices in The Times and Democrat Region are meeting the ire of area motorists and requiring some to adjust travel habits to better offset the higher costs.

Orangeburg resident Kathryn Cody said living here does not provide many activity outlets and so trips to Columbia and Charleston are often a part of her weekend routine.

Record gas prices, however, have kept her from making these trips.

"High gas prices have really been a hardship as far as my social and work life," she said, adding that the county or city could use more public transportation opportunities for individuals. "If I lived in New York, it would be different. I have two friends who have moved to the Northeast. When I went up there, there was no place to park. It was a burden to have a car."

Cody, who has friends who work with the Halliburton Co., the oil services company which has been the subject of criticism for its multibillion-dollar contracts in the Middle East, expressed her displeasure at the ongoing war in Iraq and its possible impact on gas prices.

"Instead of invading Iraq, we should have started building oil refineries," she said. "My friend was working in Canada, and they are getting oil ... out of sand."

A select survey of 18 Orangeburg service stations Tuesday morning revealed that the least-expensive gasoline sold for $2.359 at the College Corner All American Gas station at the corner of Magnolia Street and S.C. Highway 33.

Orangeburg gasoline prices are up about 27 cents from this time a month ago.

The average for regular unleaded in Orangeburg of the stations surveyed was about $2.459 a gallon.

Statewide, gasoline prices are averaging $2.34 a gallon for regular unleaded compared to a national average of $2.48, according to AAA's daily Gauge Report through Aug. 15.

Gas prices a year ago were averaging $1.708 a gallon.

Despite hitting records, state gas price averages are the lowest in the nation.

Matthew McCaughey, a Louisiana State University student and summer intern at Orangeburg's Albemarle Corp., said the rising gasoline prices have required a change in driving habits.

"Whenever I am at a stoplight, I don't get up as fast as I can. I think about saving a little gas," he said, adding that reducing speeds on the interstate have also proven more fuel efficient. "I try to make less trips to the store and just planning out your trips more."

McCaughey said his Mazda Protege gets about 35 miles per gallon, but the car's age requires frequent oil changes.

Also a sky-diving enthusiast, McCaughey said high prices have limited his sky-diving outings as travel costs have proven a burden.

"You have to think about these things because they have a real price tag to it," he said. "It takes a good deal out of your budget."

Patricia Mount of Orangeburg said while prices are high, Americans still see prices lower than many other nations.

Gasoline surveys conducted in Europe earlier this month revealed that a gallon of fuel cost $5.74 in Belgium, $5.95 in the United Kingdom and a startling $6.50 in the Netherlands.

The entrepreneurial American spirit, where many own their own cars and homes, has made rising prices possibly seem like more of a hardship, Mount said.

"It is hard for people to get into the mode of having people say, 'Oh, we will travel together,'" she said. "When I was a kid, I was taught that you work together for a common goal."

But, Mount is not too optimistic that there is an easy answer to what is a very complicated issue.

"There is so much involved in it that I don't think the average person really understands it," she said.

Retail gas prices have spiked nearly 20 cents in the past three weeks, according to a Trilby Lundberg survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country.

In the same three-week period, crude oil price futures rose about $8.21. A barrel of oil produces about 42 gallons of gasoline, resulting in a price increase of 19.6 cents per gallon, nearly identical to the 19.8 cent rise in the price at the pumps, Lundberg said.

Demand for gasoline is expected to remain high through August, but is expected to drop off after Labor Day.

Prices should soften after that, assuming underlying crude oil prices hold stable and refinery activity and shipments are not interrupted by natural disasters such as hurricanes, Lundberg said.

Gas prices, however, could be worse.

Adjusted for inflation, prices have yet to climb to the record levels reached in the 1980s.

Gas prices in March 1981 would be $3.03 per gallon in today's dollars. A barrel of oil would cost $90.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, S.C.

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HAL, ALB,

Source: The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, South Carolina

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