Report: S.C. gas prices are lowest across U.S. State average cost: $2.83, says AAA

South Carolinians may complain about paying an arm and a leg to fill up their gas tanks, but they can find comfort in a AAA survey released Monday that shows the state has the cheapest gas in the country.

A gallon of regular gas in South Carolina averaged $2.83 on Monday, according to AAA's gas-tracking Web site www.fuelgaugereport.com. That's down .004 cents from Sunday and below the average U.S. price of $3.05 a gallon, which also dropped .004 cents from Sunday.

North Carolina has the twelfth-lowest gas price, at an average $2.95 per gallon.

The most expensive regular gas can be found in Nebraska at $3.33 a gallon.

Prices spiked in the last couple weeks because of outages at several U.S. oil refineries, but "it's starting to dribble down again," AAA Carolinas spokesman Tom Crosby said Monday.

Drivers on the Grand Strand are still paying the highest cost for gas in the cheapest state. The Myrtle Beach area's average price Monday was $2.89.

"It's a pain, but at least it's better than back home," said Hannah Chang, who was fill-

ing up her PT Cruiser with 12 gallons of $2.89 regular gas at the Citgo by Tanger Outlets on U.S. 17. Chang and some friends are visiting the Grand Strand from Missouri, where the average gallon costs $3.05.

South Carolina's lowest-in-the-country gas price average has two causes: the state's location on a key pipeline and a low state-gas tax, Crosby said.

South Carolina relies on the Colonial pipeline from the Gulf Coast, which goes through Charleston, so the state's prices aren't influenced as much by the recent refinery flooding in Kansas that has caused prices in the Midwest to surge.

That and other Midwest outages have caused a 6-cent price increase in the last three weeks, according to the Lundberg Survey released Sunday.

The average state gas tax is 21.25 cents per gallon, according to the the Federal Highway Administration.

The federal gas tax has added an additional 18.4 cents a gallon since 1997.

In South Carolina, the gas tax has been among the lowest, at 16 cents a gallon, since 1987, while North Carolina's tax is 31.5 cents a gallon after lawmakers increased it in 2006.

"Both states suffer from road construction and maintenance needs that are fueled by gas tax revenue, so at some point the roads are going to get a lot worse or the taxes are going to have to increase," Crosby said.

Fuel costs are more frequently influenced by demand and global events, which make it difficult to predict where prices will go in coming weeks.

"The real dilemma is that it's fragile, and with the Mideast unrest - if something goes worse than it is there now - or with the idea that we could have a hurricane or a refinery emergency, prices could go up," Crosby said. "Without anything happening, [reducing] our driving demand is one of the ways that we could bring prices down."

Contact EMMA RITCH at 444-1722 or eritch@thesunnews.com.

By Emma Ritch - The Sun News