CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Flour Bluff resident, Phelicia Simpson, tries to time her fill-ups for her gas guzzling Jeep for when she's close to home where she says gas prices are lower.
“They’re pretty high actually, but they’re higher in town than in Flour Bluff,” she said.
A local expert says, regardless of where you buy your gas, prices are about to go up as a result of Russia invading Ukraine.
Dr. Nirmel Goswani, a political science professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, says the conflict will likely lead to a reduction in the amount of oil Russia exports, which would set off a chain reaction.
“That’s going to push up demand, and that’s going to lead to price rise," he said. "For sure — for sure there’s going to be price rise."
European countries are much bigger buyers of Russian oil than the United States is, but Goswani says international connections mean higher prices on both continents.
"Because we do so much trade economically with Europe, when things go poorly there, they’ll have an impact here," he said.
Just how big the impact will be — how high gas prices will get — Goswani says it's too early to know.
“Nobody can guess that," he said. "I mean, they can guess that, but it would be a hazardous guess."
Any price increase is bad news for Simpson, who also has a second vehicle in her family that's expensive to fuel.
"I get 11 miles to the gallon right now in my Jeep," she said laughing. "And then we have a diesel truck. So it would definitely cramp our style for sure.”
