Las Vegas gas nears record high; early winter blend switch may bring relief

Gasoline prices in the Las Vegas Valley have continued to rise this week, but there is potential for some relief at the pump as California Gov. Gavin Newsom asks his state to move to winter-blend gasoline earlier than usual.

The price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the Las Vegas Valley on Wednesday sat at $5.50, down 1 cent overnight, up 15 cents over last week and 67 cents higher than a month ago, according to AAA.

Southern Nevada is now just 11 cents away from tying the area’s record average gas price of $5.61 per gallon set on June 16, 2022, according to AAA data. The all-time high in the state is $6.67, also hit on the same date.

Newsom sent a letter Monday to four regulatory boards, including the California Air Resources Board, the regulatory body that regulates air pollution in the state, to begin using winter-blend gas about a month earlier than the usual Oct. 31 switchover from summer blend.

Winter-blend gas contains butane and other additives aimed at preventing fuel line freezing and increasing engine performance in colder temperatures. Summer-blend does not include butane, but it has other, more expensive, additives aimed at reducing emissions during the summer months.

Newsom said he requested the 30-day suspension of summer-blend in response to the ongoing war in Iran, that’s sent fuel prices soaring.

“This is an extraordinary response to extraordinary prices driven by the President’s (Donald Trump) war with Iran,” Newsom’s letter read.

Nevada receives the majority of its gas from California, so the early switch could lead to cheaper prices.

Patrick De Haan, lead petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, said with no specific timeline to the potential early changeover to winter blend gas in California, it’s unclear when prices at the pump could see the positive benefit from the switch.

“It may help, but I don’t know the timing of when these winter barrels are going to hit; it’s not exactly easy to determine,” De Haan said. “It takes a couple days for refineries to make the switch. Then it takes a couple more days for that switch to start getting pushed through pipelines. Then it takes a couple more days for that gasoline to start showing up at terminals and another few more days from that terminal to the gas station.”

As of Wednesday, California has the most expensive average price of gas in the country at $6.39 per gallon, followed by Hawaii ($5.60), Washington ($5.50), Nevada ($5.50) and Oregon ($5.05), according to AAA.

With the ongoing geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Iran, and between Russia and Ukraine affecting gas prices, long-term relief at the pump is nowhere in sight, De Haan said.

“I don’t see any long-term relief until these situations have some sort of notable paradigm shift, and we’re not there yet,” De Haan said. “I think Iran, according to the president, my calculation is that Iran thinks it has a bit of an upper hand in timing and that’s why the President has thrown cold water on making a deal with Iran before the midterms. But who knows what’s going to happen after that?”