Gasoline may not seem cheap here, but it is — compared to just about everywhere else.
Tucson consistently lays claim to the lowest average gas price in the state, and last week it laid claim — again — to a greater distinction: cheapest in the country.
Four times in the last year, the biweekly Lundberg Survey has ranked Tucson's gas the cheapest in the land. The results of the survey published July 15, 2007, one of the dates Tucson was cheapest, are almost enough to bring a tear to the eye: For a gallon of unleaded regular, Tucsonans were paying $2.80.
Last Sunday, a year later, Tucson was again cheapest, at $3.82.
That price remained Friday, according to a survey by AAA. That day, the average price of regular gasoline in Tucson was $3.821, while it was $4.059 in Phoenix and $4.234 in Flagstaff.
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Strange as it might sound when our gas prices hover near record highs, how did Tucson get so lucky?
The biggest factor in the national comparison is that Tucson sits atop a Kinder Morgan pipeline carrying the country's cheapest gasoline from the Gulf Coast in Texas.
That didn't seem lucky in 2003, when the pipeline ruptured on Tucson's West Side, spilling 52,000 gallons of fuel. But last year the company finished replacing the existing 8-inch pipeline with a new 16-inch line. Now 87 percent of Arizona's gas comes from the east, rather than the 47 percent we got from there before the rupture.
While Phoenix also receives gas from this same pipeline, there are factors that make gas more expensive there. Stations in the Phoenix metropolitan area are required to sell gas that has special additives to protect the environment, said Steve Meissner, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures.
"The formulation thing is crucial because Tucson does not have the same mandate in the state implementation plan that Phoenix is under," he said.
Stations in the Phoenix area also must have vapor-recovery systems that are tested annually by Weights and Measures, which pushes up costs, Meissner said. And Phoenix receives some of its gas from a pipeline that comes in from the west, delivering more expensive gasoline from California.