Regular vs Premium Gas Pricing

[thescreensavers]

It seems like the price between regular and premium gas keeps going up. I looked at a few gas stations near me here in WPB and it's about 70 cents between regular and Premium fuel.

Anyone understand why a few more octane costs ~20% more? Or is "Big Gas" just rising prices artificially?

 

[Klutch9]

It seems like the price between regular and premium gas keeps going up. I looked at a few gas stations near me here in WPB and it's about 70 cents between regular and Premium fuel.

Anyone understand why a few more octane costs ~20% more? Or is "Big Gas" just rising prices artificially?




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Around here it’s at least a dollar. Most smaller gas stations it’s $1.30 to $1.40 more. In my travels I’ve seen that it varies wildly. SW Florida is about a 70/80 cent spread. Eastern PA is 80 cents to a dollar more. For the longest time around me it was only a 20 cent spread, up until around 09.

 

[Analog-1]

It's a dollar more here in Michigan likely because very few people buy it.

 

[Ayrton]

Around me, about 40 cents from Regular to 91 is fairly common. In the old days, it was just 10 cents between each tier (so 20 from regular to premium).

There are some stations that try to have a much bigger spread as you point out. I try to avoid those stations.

 

[rijndael]

It's .90 for me ... I buy it at Costco.

 

[dadto2]

Everybody focuses on how many dollars difference there is between regular and premium over time, but that's a false comparison. The chart above shows that in 1994 the difference was $.20 and in 2023 it was $.91.

The national avg price per gallon for regular was $1.11 in 1994, so premium was 18% more expensive.

The national avg price per gallon for regular was $3.52 in 2023, so premium was 25% more expensive.

That is an increase for sure, but it's not as dramatic as the raw dollar amount makes it seem.

 

[pharden]

Here in Rhode Island some stations are at $1.30 a gallon difference. Shell stations seem to have the highest difference. Regular is $3.00 and premium is $4.29

 

[doitmyself]

In my locale, the gap seems to close when gas prices go unusually high, maybe 15 to 20 cents difference between regular and premium. I wonder why.

 

[john_pifer]

$.90 more in TN.

I'm glad our Elantra N is able to run on low-test, as most of the time I'm just droning on the interstate on my commute.

With my 92 mile round trip commute, using premium would be close to $20 extra per week.

If I'm going on a fun drive, I'll use hi-test.

 

[tmorris1]

The price difference in my town is $1 for non-oxy 91. Some place are less of a gap but they have 91 with 10% ethanol.

 

[Patman]

It’s even worse up here, I’m starting to see a lot of stations that charge 45 cents per liter more for premium so that’s $1.70 more per gallon!!

 

[PF52]

The good people of DuPage County IL are still filling their high-end SUVs with Premium, if what I see on the pump screen is correct, before inserting my card.

 

[FoxProTwisty]

Define "premium." That could range from 91 to 93 here and then there's 91 non-oxy which is the most expensive.

I run 92 from Costco about 90% of the time. Costco prices their 87 gas to be the lowest compared to the other stations in the immediate area, not city-wide as there could be a $.50/gal spread between Costco stations. And they only sell 87 and 92 here and 92 is usually that $.50 bump over 87.

But yes, I do see that trend going up which tells me demand is up. Today that spread is $.60 ($2.80 vs $3.40).

 

[Hall]

Define "premium." That could range from 91 to 93 here

Anything 91+ is "premium". It appears to be a regional thing to a large extent too. Around here, 90% of stations have 93 (87, 89, 93) as their top tier - I guess it's just what the suppliers here have. One chain, Thornton's, does sell 91 instead.

 

[92saturnsl2]

Going from 87 to 93 here is about $1.00 difference. Occasionally I'll stumble upon one that is closer to $0.60-0.80 more but that is rare and doesn't usually last long.

 

[Pew]

From my travels around, I'm assuming it's highly state dependent. IL it's like $0.90 difference but down in OK it's only 0.30-0.40 more than regular (premium in OK was only 0.10 more than unleaded in IL.)

 

[jtay2024]

In the UK it seems to be entirely based on how affluent an area is. For example, a fuel station out in the countryside will have a £0.25 difference between regular and premium, whereas a fuel station in a cheap part of a city may only have £0.08 - £0.10 difference. (From what I've seen around by me and my work anyway. I will try and do more digging using a petrol price app to find out if the pattern is more country wide.

*EDIT*

I was wrong. I took a sample of a couple of fuel stations. 5 from less well off areas and 5 from known well off areas and found the average difference between regular and premium was the same. Must just be near me that the difference is more pronounced. Still a small sample size, but shows it's unlikely that area makes a difference.

 

[MountainManDan]

Possibly all Good Fuel is Now being Used in Military Operations , Prices all around TN have been Like Yo-Yo

with Swings of .20 - .30 cents a Gallon , now Jump Up for Grade , Mid Grade & Premium Grade use to be .11 cents then .22 cents that all Long Gone . . went to .28 for Mid Grade & .38 Cents for High Test ..
Lately .25 Mid & .60 High Test . . Today in Eastern TN with Octane 87 being $2.47 down from $2.88 just 4 days ago , Going to Go Fill Up
Fuel Tanks & Vehicles

 

[Hohn]

Circle K has managed to nearly monopolize our local market, leaving only a small handful of Top Tier stations locally-- two Marathon and two Shell (independent).

I prefer V Power Nitro fuel-- not for octane so much as detergency and lubricity. The difference between our two local Shell stations is $0.40/gal for the same fuel.

One of them is wanting $4.70/gal for V-power. If I buy Shell at the station closer to where I work, it's right around $4 even for V-power.

That one station I now avoid because I was so offended by the higher-than-everyone-else price.

 

[Rmay635703]

That’s why I run an e-blend like 88e15, sadly the price on that is really jacked up the last several weeks .

Typically the price difference between 88e15 and premium is almost $2, now it’s a more reasonable $1.50 but this also coincides with fuel prices going up. Immediately after the photo they raised to $2.97 with some places $3.09+ (it’s rare I see the prices change in real time while I’m at a station)

Supposedly fuel prices are going down but around here they have mostly gone up since February, with a brief dip about a week ago.

One positive side effect of this is that diesel fuel is cheaper than rug for the first time in years.