COLORADO SPRINGS, Col. (KRDO) — Colorado Springs residents pay an average of $3.84 a gallon, and that price isn’t expected to drop any time soon.
Max Marsiglio plays for the Pueblo Bulls Hockey Club. He drives to Pueblo nearly every day for games and practice, requiring him to tank at least twice a week.
The state’s supply declined after Suncor, its sole refinery, had to close for repairs due to extreme cold and two wildfires. Suncor supplies 35-40% of the state’s fuel.
Chief Petroleum, a fuel supplier in Colorado Springs, said it traveled to a refinery in Kansas to get the fuel — a five-hour one-way trip. And that’s not taking into account the long queues. Out-of-state refineries are seeing increased demand since Suncor’s shutdown with waits of up to four hours.
“The business model is typically based on one local haul truck carrying five to six local loads,” said Eric Liebold, director of operations at Chief Petroleum. “That truck is now hauling a load out of Kansas.”
Liebold said the pump problem is a classic equation between supply and demand.
“Supply has been drastically reduced, demand remains high, so prices will continue to rise,” he said. “We are passing these costs on from our suppliers to our customers.”
To try to boost supply, Governor Jared Polis declared an emergency emergency on December 31 due to fuel shortages. He extended that order on Monday afternoon.
In a statement to 13 Investigates, Polis said, “We are continuing to update our federal partners on the current status and are working with private suppliers to ensure the state has adequate fuel supplies until the refinery is operational.” “.
The executive order waives certain regulations, allowing fuel trucks to carry more weight and drivers to work more days. Usually, wait times at a refinery count towards a driver’s 14 hour day, order does not include wait times. This means that a truck driver can wait in a refinery for four hours and still work 18 hours a day.
“What the governor has done is save Colorado households tens of millions of dollars and fuel costs that otherwise would have impacted Colorado households right now,” said Grier Bailey, executive director of Colorado Petroleum.
Liebold said the executive order helped, but he still wants to avoid asking Chief Petroleum drivers to work 20-hour days.
“You’re asking a lot of those drivers, and we have to factor in safety and we can only push people so far,” he said.
Suncor said it should be operational in late March. But just as fuel supply increases, Colorado will need to switch to an EPA-mandated summer fuel, which traditionally raises gas prices.
“We would see lower prices than almost anywhere in the country, especially with a supply shortage,” Bailey said. “Prices have gone up and will stay until September, October this year.”
Meanwhile, Colorado is looking to work with suppliers, such as Phillips 66 and Valero, to increase the amount of gas they bring to the state, as well as the fuel flowing through pipelines.
“We have a refinery,” said Angie Binder, executive director of the Colorado Petroleum Association. “We have very few limited pipelines that bring refined oil into the state. Whenever there’s a problem with that distribution, we see problems with the gas supply in Colorado.
Joseph Gordon drove his truck and trailer to a gas station on Monday. His family owns a hauling business and travels almost daily from Woodland Park to Fort Collins. He said the financial effect at the pump comes down to more than just gas.
“As gas prices have gone up, sometimes fuel is over $1,000 a week,” Gordon said. “I’ve invested heavily in fuel, which means we just have to pass the price on to the consumers who buy our hay, which is a shame.”
