I live in a rural area off I-80 about 3,000" elevation in the Ca. foothills, our gas prices are always about ten to fifteen cents more because we are the last gas station for many miles heading into the Sierras and the only small town for many more miles. Today the two more expensive stations are charging $3.45 and $3.57, one of the attendants has gotten into the spirit of the deal and holds a balck mask against his face when he takes payment for gas.

California has always been more expensive than most other states with excuses of having to change from the winter to summer "formula" or vise versa. Or they will blame is on the fact that at these crucial times there is a repair that just happened to be scheduled at that time reducing production and inflating the price of gas. The fat cats are consistently reporting record quarterly earnings and not cutting us any slack. The price of a barrel of crude oil is cheaper than it was a year ago at this time yet we are experiencing record gas prices?!? Getta rope

Getta rope Nope, too expensive.

Yes, I have also heard this. And honestly, it blows my mind! Can someone please explain why we are paying more for gas even though the barrels are somehow cheaper?

Anyway, gas around here is $3.10

Prices here in and around Seattle tend to be about $3.45/gal for regular grade (89 octane IIRC).

As to the pricing, there are costs for refining, adding additives, and distributing the product, but the costs at the pump don't ever seem to waver with the price of oil very much. I can't remember who said it, but someone put it best saying that the price of oil is down, but the gas stations won't know about it for 6 months.

Btw, I've been told that California and Washington have such strict emissions laws so as to require extra-refined gasoline, which raises the costs a little bit more for us.

for us in England they price per litre not gallon.
so we probs pay a load more than u do. stupid government tax us horrendously on fuel/gasoline, (70% of price is tax!!!)
currently unleaded is around 95p per litre while diesel is always more expensive at around 98p per litre currently

Diesel is less expensive here...
isn't it?

Used to be here, but it's actually more expensive now. Silly, because diesel is cheaper to manufacture and diesel cars get [typically] extremely good mileage.

Supply and demand.

Don't complain. Up here, the dollar/gallon works out to be around $3.80 USD. Fortunately, diesel is usually about 25 cents cheaper than gasoline.

Yeah, the last time I went on a fishing trip up to Canada, we were paying a little over $4/gal as I recall. Of course, it was a pretty secluded region, but still very expensive.