Victoria Brown|The Daytona Beach News-Journal
As gas pricesrise, use this tracker from Gas Buddy to find out where the cheapest prices are located around Daytona Beach, Florida.
Recently: Overnight gas price jump shatters Daytona, Florida records
Related: Gas prices break records second day in row in Florida, Daytona Beach
More: Gas tops $4 a gallon in Volusia, Flagler amid worsening Ukraine crisis
Q&A: Why gas prices are climbing
What's driving the gas price increase?
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been fueling increases in global prices for crude oil, the primary ingredient used to produce gasoline and other petroleum products. The increases began well before the invasion amid growing concerns that the crisis would disrupt global oil supplies.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that the United States will ban Russian oil imports. That is expected todrivefuel pump prices even higher domestically even though Russia only accounts for a tiny fractionof the oil consumed annually in ourcountry.
Who sets gas prices?
Crude oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, not by individual countries,politicians, or even the oil companies themselves, according to industry experts.
"This is a global commodity. Everyone feels the effects of it (the Ukraine crisis)," said Patrick DeHaan, the Chicago-based head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.com. "This is not just a U.S. problem. Every country that consumes gasoline is seeing prices dramatically higher."
For example, when U.S. refineries temporarily halt production in the Gulf of Mexico because of hurricanes, it causes crude oil prices around the world to go up, he said.
How much gas were we importing from Russia?
According to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association, the United States in 2021 imported an average of 209,000 barrels of petroleum and 500,000 barrels of petroleum products a day from Russia.
That combined total of 709,000 barrels a day accounted for only 3.58% of the 20.65 million barrels of oil and petroleum products our nationconsumed each day last year.
Wait, isn't the U.S. supposed to be energy independent?
Becoming energy independent as a nation has been a stated goal for the United States since1973 when President Richard Nixon first identified it as a priority.
That has yet to actually happen, even thoughour county has been exporting more oil than we import as of late.
The United States in the first half of 2020 exported more oil than it imported for onlythe second time in history, according to the U.S, Energy Information Administration. Our country remained a net exporter of oil in the first half of 2021, but just barely. U.S. exports of crude oil and petroleum products such as distillate fuel oil, motor gasoline, and jet fuel, exceeded imports by 120,000 barrels per date, or less than 1% of the combined total amount exported and imported.
Even as a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products, the United States still relies on imports from other countries, particularly on the West Coast and in the Northeast because of challenges related to geography, transportation, and logistics, according to the AFPM.
Why don't we tap more from the strategic petroleum reserve?
The answer is, the United States already is. According to a statement issued by the White House on Tuesday, the Biden administration has already committed to releasing more than 90 million barrels from the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve this fiscal year. Member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to a collective release of an initial 60 million barrels from their respective strategic petroleum reserves. That total included the 30 million released last week in an emergency sale bythe United States.
Why can't we simply produce more oil?
U.S. oil and gas production is already approaching record highs, but according to the Biden administration "thousands of drilling permits of federal lands go unused." That's because it is up to oil and gas companies, and the finance firms that back them, to do the actual drilling.
Would restarting the Keystone XL Pipeline project help?
Not any time soon, said DeHaan, referring to an abandoned controversial project to build a pipeline that could increase the amount of oil delivered to the U.S.fromCanada. Only 8% of the proposed Phase 4 project was finished when it was scrapped by TC Energy.
In talking with oil companies, DeHaansaid he was told, "Even if the Keystone was finishedtomorrow, that they don't have the manpower, they don't haveequipment, they don't have the people, they don't have a lot of the things they needto increase oil production.Canada does not have excess oil that they could suddenly put in this pipeline. The problem is so much of this is from COVID and supply chains are out of whack."
How much will gas prices keep rising?
That remains anyone's guess.
DeHaan, on Tuesday following Biden's announcement, predictedU.S. gasoline prices will likely keep"inching highertowards $4.50 a gallon," but said he does not expect to continue to see dramatic price jumps like theones seen early this week, at least for the nation as a whole.California, however, could see the average price of gas hit $6, he said.
"The good news for motorists is that oil prices (Tuesday afternoon) backed off somewhat. The increases will continue, but the pace of those increases will likely slow down."
"President Biden's announcement (on Tuesday) wasnot a surprise. It probably will have some influence, but not very much," he said. That's because "many oil companies were already curbing the flow of Russian oil ahead of (the U.S. ban). It's not going to necessarily have a shockwave."
Business Editor Clayton Park contributed to this report.
Victoria Brown is a digitalproducer for USA TODAY Network's Florida region. Contact Victoria at vbrown1@gannett.com.
