Gas Skyrockets Nearly A Dollar A Gallon In Just A Week In Michigan

Just when Americans thought things couldn't get more expensive, gas prices pulled a "hold my beer" and hit near-record prices this week. Since early March, drivers across the country have absorbed the increase-by-increase cost be it at the pump, or through everything else transported via the liquid gold energy source. But the state that lays claim to the heart of the automotive industry is feeling it exceptionally hard, as the Detroit Free Press reported Michigan gas prices increasing by near $2.00 a gallon in two months time, with the biggest increase at almost a dollar per gallon on average, just last week.

The cherry on the cake that is literally burning your money at the pump was an overnight increase of 28 cents per gallon, bringing Michigan gas prices to $4.86 per gallon Monday morning — 41-cents a gallon higher than the national average of $4.45 a gallon. Late last month the state's prices had sat at a "cooler" $3.96. It's all-too painful when you realize that at the beginning of March, Michigan gas was still averaging $2.99 a gallon.

While events continue to unfold or pause (depends on the time of day lately) in the Strait of Hormuz, the pinching of shipments, especially crude oil deliveries, were surprisingly not behind the near insidious increases of Michigan or Midwest's gas prices this week. The region's woes, according to the Detroit News, are due to untimely refinery site issues and maintenance.

Last week, BP's refinery in Whiting, Indiana experienced heavy flaring that led to a power outage and shut down of one of its processing units. As one of the largest refineries in in the Midwest, the week-long struggle for the plant to return to full production — at 440,000 barrels a day — has put a hefty dent in an already weak oil supply.

Meanwhile, two more refineries were already under scheduled maintenance when Whiting's plant went down — an Illinois Phillips 66 refinery that typically produced 356,000 barrels a day, and a Marathon refinery that should return to production later this month.

GasBuddy shared some good news though for those of us suffering in the Midwest, and gas prices are expected to come down soon, possibly a result of BP Whiting's return to full operation, but that only counteracts the region's supply issue and not the greater problem at hand. Really, the longer the US drags things out in this awful game of cat and mouse with the Middle East, the Midwest's gas spike could just be a preview of things to come.