Longtime local resident Cheryl Nugent said she just paid her most expensive, single delivery heating fuel bill ever: $818.23 for 146.1 gallons. Petro Marine, the sole heating fuel provider in Kodiak, charged her $5.60 per gallon when they filled up her residential tank earlier in March.
Over the weekend of March 20 and 21, when she ordered an additional ten gallons, the cost was $5.44 per gallon. As recently as January, heating fuel in Kodiak cost $4.10 per gallon. Petro Marine frequently changes its local heating fuel prices, sometimes from week to week.
According to Petro Star’s website, they provide heating oil, diesel fuel and gasoline, among other services in Kodiak. The #1 HS fuel oil Petro uses for heating fuel in communities across Alaska is Arctic-grade which is a type of diesel fuel.
Rick Borton, Petro Marine’s local manager for its North Pacific Fuel office, told KMXT that the company had no comment regarding the price hike. A representative of its parent company, Melissa Prine, with Petro Star in Anchorage, did not respond to requests for comment, either.
But we know that global energy markets have been reacting to disruptions stemming from the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran.
Price data the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs collected in January – before the war began – showed the average heating fuel price of the 100 mostly rural communities surveyed was already about 77% higher than the national average.
According to that same Alaska Fuel Price Report for this winter, in Ouzinkie in January, heating fuel was $4.42 per gallon, same as last January. In Port Lions in January, heating fuel was $4.88 per gallon, whereas last January it was $4.60 per gallon. In Old Harbor in January, heating fuel was $5.22 per gallon, same as last January. In Larsen Bay in January, heating fuel was $6.17 per gallon, whereas last January it was $5.94 per gallon.
In the broader financial markets, contracts for heating oil futures are trading for about 80% more now than a month ago. Energy prices in general are up everywhere.
“We are in a global market," Alaska economist Mike Jones said.
Jones is with the Institute of Economic and Social Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
“These are globally traded commodities, so while we are quite removed geographically, we still are very much subject to the global price pressures," he said.
For example, regular unleaded gasoline in Kodiak jumped up from $4.68 per gallon last month to more than $5 at several pumps across the island’s road system this week, except at the gas station on Coast Guard Base Kodiak which is charging $4.50 per gallon according to Gas Buddy.
Similarly, the price of Jet A fuel has spiked 100% globally this month, causing some larger airlines in the state and regional ones like Alaska Seaplanes to add on fuel surcharges or increase airfares.
