$5.73 at Mobil on Yorba Linda. $5.89 at Arco. $5.99 at the Chevron on Imperial and likewise at the Chevron on Yorba Linda Boulevard. The Chevron down the hill by Fairmont Elementary and Trader Joe’s tops this pricey list off with $6.19 per gallon of gasoline. Even Costco, with its bustling lines and popular low prices, sees its cost at $5.59 (all prices above according to gasbuddy.com). At the break of 2022, gas had its demand mostly around the middle range of 4 dollars, yet has recently surged in price to explode past 5 dollars and even into 7 dollars in some areas. Why is this?

The recent hike in sticker price has its roots in the COVID pandemic, according to CBS News. Towards the end of March 2020, as the lockdown took hold, demand for gas plummeted as fewer civilians went out and about. The result was a drop in the national averages of gas prices to $1.94 per gallon, as recorded by the US Energy Information Administration. Another consequence to this shift in the economics of supply and demand lay in the reduced production of natural gas and oil by OPEC and other oil-producing nations. According to CBS News, this cut represented 10 percent of the global supply.

December 2020 marked the beginning of the end of quarantine, as pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna also announced a 90% efficiency rate to their COVID vaccines. As economic recovery was well on its way, a return of the American populace to the outside world marked another increase in demand for gasoline. Yet, per GasBuddy’s chief statistician Patrick de Haan, OPEC and their fellow gas-producing nations were slow to return to their pre-COVID production levels, resulting in a steady hike of prices. 

Likely the most recent development has occurred with Russia’s war on Ukraine. Taking aim at Russia’s main revenue source, President Biden banned all imports of Russian oil and gas energy in early March in an effort to target the Russian economy (CBS News). These sanctions, though, have seen the price at the pump rise by nearly 75 cents.

Still, this has spurred the popularity of electric and hybrid cars like the Tesla and Prius. “On longer drives, I drive my family’s Prius because it’s so much cheaper,” says Rebecca Kam (12). “We get like 320 miles on the gas range after filling up the tank.”

Yet, as hiking gas prices sear into California wallets, there remains hope for costs to stabilize soon. Alternative, non-gasoline vehicles also remain as viable options for Yorba Linda residents to turn to in the future.