Today’s fuel price musings

February 27th, 2008 at 11:02am Thomas V. Bona

Every day, I monitor gas prices from around the state on AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com. The site uses information from Oil Price Information Service to list gas prices for metro areas around the country (when looking at it, remember the “metro area” caveat: Rockford includes lower-priced areas such as Belvidere; Chicago includes lower-prices areas in the suburbs. So that’s why the metro area averages don’t always match the prices in the heart of the city).

I’m going to try posting a daily look at where Rockford ranks in the state, where Illinois ranks in the country and what the trends are, both in gasoline and in diesel. Over time, as I compile a spreadsheet of these numbers, I hope to be able to look back with better historical context.

On to today’s musings:

Gasoline: Rockford is again tops in Illinois at $3.23 a gallon, five cents above the state average. We dropped two cents since yesterday. The state on average remained level: Bloomington dropped almost four cents, while Springfield increased four cents and Quincy increased almost five cents. The state average is three cents above the national average; Illinois has the 13th-highest gas prices in the country.

Diesel: Rockford is only ninth out of 11 metro areas in the state at $3.64 a gallon, eight cents below the state average. We gained a fraction of a cent since yesterday, mirroring the state. Chicago remains the highest at $3.82 a gallon. The only big changes were in the two lowest metro areas in the state: Quincy jumped almost seven cents while East Saint Louis fell three cents. The state average is 11 cents higher than the national average; Illinois has the ninth-highest diesel prices in the country.

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