While it is true that the proverbial"summer blend" adds a few cents onto the gallon, experts say the real problem is in a certain state to the west.As of Friday, the average gas prices in Maricopa and Pinal counties are almost a dollar over the national average,. In Maricopa County, expect to see prices to the tune of $4.36 per gallon — give or take some cents.
Julian Paredes explained."You know, that was actually a big problem last year, and this is kind of a little bit of a repeat." The escalation of wars in Ukraine and Israel has also fed into recent price increases. OPEC and allied oil producers like Russia recently announced that they are deepening their voluntary crude supply cuts, theSo what's up with the summer blend? It's a bit of a misnomer, and it's not what caused the current price jump — we've been using it for over a month now, and it's definitely not summer yet.
The federal mandate to start using this blend is in June, Paredes said, but Arizona starts sooner and switches over county by county as the state warms up.