Unleaded gas surged to nearly $7 a gallon this week at the two stations in Haines — the highest price in recent memory.
Prices jumped about a dollar early in the week, rising to $2 above the national average.
A gallon of unleaded gas on Wednesday cost $6.96 at Tesoro and $6.94 at Bigfoot Auto.
“I couldn’t believe it. I saw it, and I was just like, ‘This is a mistake,’ ” said longtime resident Joe Ordoñez.
The spike in fuel costs, which have been rising for months, is especially concerning to business owners who rely on gasoline and diesel for daily operations, from fishermen to construction companies to tour operators.
Alaska Marine Lines recently announced that it would raise its fuel surcharge to 26% on goods barged to Haines, according to a memo from borough manager Annette Kreitzer to the borough finance committee. She said it “will affect every element of every project that is shipped into Haines.”
Even before the price jump this week, several fishermen told the CVN that fuel costs were a concern ahead of the gillnet season, which started last Sunday, but that they were hoping high fish prices would keep them in the black.
Ordoñez, who owns commercial tour company Rainbow Glacier Adventures, which has a fleet of 14 passenger vehicles, said there’s not much his business can do at this point to reduce the pain of high gasoline charges.
“Our prices are fixed with the contracts. We can’t raise them mid-season. We can’t do some fuel surcharge. We just eat it,” he said.
Alaska Fjordlines owner Alison Jacobson said fuel is her company’s biggest expense and that she’s “very concerned” about rising prices. “We consume 300 gallons a day,” she said.
A large portion of Fjordlines’ clientele are highway travelers, who might be less inclined to burn gas getting to Haines or to pay for a tour, she said. “If people have only so much money to spend, and they’re spending it on gas, they’re not going to spend on tours.”
Dan Egolf, of Alaska Nature Tours, which uses two 30-person buses to transport visitors, said he recently paid a $1,000 fuel bill, and that was before the price jump this week. “We’re pretty well stuck with what we started out with in terms of capacities,” he said.
Ordoñez said he’ll have to raise tour prices next year to keep up with fuel costs and inflation.
At least the return of tourists to town this summer has helped the business turn a profit, he said. The high gas prices are “not ideal,” he said, “but these are good problems considering the last two years where we had no business and we were struggling to just kind of make it.”
Lutak Lumber owner Chip Lende said the rise in prices has made deliveries more expensive, but so far he hasn’t had to raise delivery costs for customers. He said the rising AML fuel surcharge “has a big impact.” That fee is more than twice what it was before the pandemic.
The statewide average for a gallon of regular gas on Wednesday was $5.60 — the highest it has ever been, according to AAA. The average in Juneau this week was $5.40. Nationwide it was about $5. California led the country Wednesday at $6.37 a gallon, due in part to emissions requirements and high taxes.
Alaska’s state motor fuel tax is 8 cents a gallon, the lowest in the nation. Alaska has not changed its tax rate in 60 years.
A gallon in Haines is now almost a dollar more than in Skagway. At Family Fuel there, regular gas costs $6.05 per gallon.
Earlier this spring, Tim Cochran, Skagway terminal manager of Petro Marine, which supplies fuel to Skagway, said prices might be higher in Haines, supplied by Delta Western, since Petro Marine does more bulk shipping around Southeast and sends a larger-volume barge to Skagway which supplies a lot of fuel to Whitehorse, Y.T.
At Cascade Convenience in Sitka, a gallon of regular gas cost $5.62 on Wednesday. The same cost $5.49 in Wrangell and $6.45 in Yakutat.
The largest cost in refinery operations is crude oil. U.S. crude prices, after reaching almost $119 a barrel on June 17, have slid back to just over $106 on Tuesday as markets are growing nervous over signs of weaker consumer demand.
Crude oil traded in the mid-$60s range in December, before tightening global supply and Russia’s attack on Ukraine pushed prices past the $100 mark.