Gas prices continue to drop throughout Florida

Gas prices continue to drop throughout Florida

2022-09-09T14:39:14-04:00September 9th, 2022|Economy, Energy, Tampa Bay, Utilities|

Writer: Joshua Andino

2 min read September 2022Gas prices have been dropping for the longest stretch in the last decade. Here’s what that means for Tampa Bay and across Florida. 

While headlines can be quick to spotlight increased inflation noted by the Consumer Price Index, it remains critical to see how those numbers translate to the price of goods in a particular market. An easy barometer is gasoline prices, the cost of which most Americans are intimately familiar with. While CPI numbers remain high, coming in at 8.5% over a 12-month period in July, the gas price index dropped 7.7% around the same time. 

Florida in particular stands as one of the states where gas prices have continued to drop. While most of the United States receives its gas through pipelines, Tampa and Florida stand apart. Despite not having access to major pipelines, the multiple ports across the state, including Port Tampa Bay, which saw the largest petroleum terminal upgrade in its history back in 2013, mean that gas prices in Florida are even lower than the current national average. 

Florida, despite its lack of pipeline access, does not see the same shocks to the system that unexpected disruptions can cause in other parts of the country. Earlier in 2021, a ransomware attack on the Colonial Gas pipeline, which provides fuel for much of the United States’ eastern seaboard, sent prices skyrocketing and panicked buyers scrambled to fill their tanks. In Florida, the impacts were less so thanks to that same access to seaborne tankers and ports, delivering and storing millions of gallons of fuel with each shipment.

According to AAA, today’s national average for a gallon of gas will run a consumer about $3.738. In Florida, that average is even lower, seeing the average price stand at $3.478. Gas prices across Tampa Bay range from $3.439 in Pinellas County, $3.446 in Hillsborough County, and $3.455 in Manatee County, according to AAA’s gas price dashboard. For other parts of the state, such as Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, prices are similarly lower than the national average, but not quite as easy going as what Tampa has to offer its drivers. Average prices in South Florida range from $3.536 in Miami Dade to $3.682 in Palm Beach, with Broward the cheapest of the three at $3.518. 

Whether prices will continue to drop remains to be seen. It’s unusual for prices to decline over the summer, yet they have continued to do so, coming down from a record high national average of $5.01 in June. Prices have slowly but steadily dropped, contributing to what has become the second-longest decline in gas prices since 2005. However, whether prices continue to drop remains to be seen, with Russia and OPEC announcing at the beginning of the month that they would be cutting production to stabilize prices even as they continued to drop. The economic landscape is further complicated by a challenged supply chain and the largest land-war in Europe. 

Those challenges, however, only further underscore the resiliency of Tampa Bay as well as the Floridian economy’s connection to the sea, whose ports alone are a massive $117 billion economic engine and provide approximately 900,000 jobs.

Share This Story!