CHARLESTON, W.Va. — If you got gas Wednesday you noticed prices are back above $4 a gallon.
Reports from several parts of the state said prices blew by the $4 mark and are now around $4.15 a gallon.
Gasbuddy.com head of petroleum analysis Patrick DeHaan said prices in West Virginia are up 16-cents a gallon over the past week.
“We are seeing oil prices rebound amidst declining inventory for both gasoline and diesel,” DeHaan said during an appearance Wednesday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
DeHaan said diesel was under $5 a gallon last Thursday but it’s now $5.31 a gallon. He said the price has built because of the pressure caused by demand with limited supplies.
“Diesel inventories are now at their lowest level in 14 years,” DeHaan said.
A number of things have caused that including a limited number of refineries in the eastern U.S.
The European Union has proposed a ban on imports of Russian crude oil within six months and on refined oil products from Russia by the end of the year. DeHaan said the move has been anticipated.
“It’s going to be very hard for the EU to basically cut-off Russia oil simply because it gets 4.5 million barrels from Russia a day. The bigger question is how is this going to continue to create a wider gap between supply and demand,” DeHaan said.
He said there’s a wide imbalance and the longer it goes on the longer it’s going to take to recover.
“Demand is red hot and supplies can’t keep up and we’re fencing off Russian oil from the global market–it’s not going to end well,” DeHaan said.