Delores Guenther watches the nubers change as she pumps gas into her Buick Rendezvouz at the AAFES gas station at Hainerberg shopping center in Wiesbaden, Germany, on Thursday. Unleaded gas prices will climb nearly 12 cents this week at AAFES stations. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, AAFES gas prices will break all records Saturday for the fourth time in as many weeks.
Prices for all grades of gasoline will surge roughly 12 cents per gallon at Army and Air Force Exchange Service stations in Germany and the United Kingdom — the biggest one-week price hike in six months. Gas prices in the Netherlands will rise about a dime; the price of diesel climbs to nearly $4.80 a gallon, for example.
The surge in prices has been expected.
The Energy Information Administration, or EIA, suggested earlier this month that the average cost of gas could top $4 a gallon sometime this spring. Right now, EIA data has the average price of gas pegged at just under $3.56.
The high cost of crude oil is the biggest culprit behind the skyrocketing cost of motor fuel, according to analysts. The average world crude oil price on April 18 was $44.31 more than a year ago, the EIA noted Wednesday in its weekly petroleum status report. And crude prices flirted with $120 a barrel earlier this week.
Those costs have hit customers right in the wallet.
Average weekly stateside prices have climbed roughly 25 cents a gallon since March 24, according to the EIA, and AAFES prices have matched those gains penny for penny.
Filling up a 15-gallon tank with regular gas in Germany now costs about $55.12, compared with $45.52 a year ago — an increase of about 21 percent. The same amount of diesel cost about $45.27 in Germany last year, but runaway prices in the U.S. have driven that to $64.65 — a 43 percent increase.
Still, that’s cheap compared to the cost of diesel in the Netherlands, where 15 gallons run nearly $72.
While these prices are records for AAFES, they are dwarfed by prices off base in Europe.
In the U.K., 15 gallons of premium gas costs motorists more than $120 on average, and drivers in the Netherlands pay more than $140. AAFES customers pay $57.51 in the U.K. and $70.02 in the Netherlands for that same gas.
