Gas Gauge: $4 Gas Is Here

When I drove by the Shell station on the East Side around noon, my jaw dropped at the low gas price—just $3.99 a gallon! I can't guarantee it will stay that way all day, so my advice is to head there in a hurry and fill 'er up.

Remember those  (or February or March), when the price of a gallon of regular was just $3.19?

This week, Geneva's Gas Gauge jumped over the $4 mark for the first time this year. The record for the Chicago area was $4.35 set in July 2008, according to Gasbuddy.com.

In an excellent article on The Expired Meter website, petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan says there's a regional cause-and-effect to go along with the usual suspects of higher oil prices and Middle East unrest.

BP's Whiting refinery in Indiana—the sixth biggest in the U.S.—is undergoing a little maintenance, apparently, which means it will be producing less. Since it accounts for about 20 percent of the Geneva area's gasoline, that could be lifting prices up a bit, DeHaan speculates.

The article says local prices are likely to stay up through Memorial Day.

The average price of a gallon of gas in Geneva is $4.05 as of noon Monday. That's up 21 cents from last week and 39 cents from the price two weeks ago.