Natrona Holds the Crown: Three Straight Months as Wyoming’s Cheapest Gas

With input from Oil City News, K2 Radio, and Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Natrona County keeps doing what the rest of the country can’t: lowering prices. While the national average ticked up to $3.03 a gallon last week, Natrona’s average slipped another six cents to $2.48, extending its streak as Wyoming’s cheapest to a full three months. AAA pegs the national average at $3.07 — about four cents higher than a week ago — while Wyoming as a whole nudged up two cents to $2.94. Diesel isn’t helping anyone’s budget either, with the national average jumping 6.5 cents to $3.728.

On the ground in Casper, bargain hunters still have clear targets. GasBuddy shows $2.35 at the Exxon on Valley Drive and $2.36 at Sam’s Club on East 2nd Street. The county leaderboard shuffled behind Natrona: Converse County climbed into second with a $2.71 average, bumping Laramie, and Washakie slid into third at $2.83. Statewide, GasBuddy’s survey of 494 stations shows Wyoming’s average at $2.93 — up 8.3 cents on the week but still 3.7 cents cheaper than a month ago and 13.2 cents below last year. The spread across the state remains wide, with the cheapest pump last week at $2.36 and the priciest at $3.99, a yawning $1.63 gap. Nearby markets are mixed: Fort Collins sits around $2.69, Ogden about $3.12, and Billings steady near $2.98.

Nationally, Patrick De Haan at GasBuddy points to refinery snags in the Great Lakes and on the West Coast and another hefty draw in gasoline inventories as the culprits propping up prices. With the FAA’s flight cuts contributing to thousands of cancellations ahead of Thanksgiving, some travelers may swap boarding passes for road trips, subtly lifting gasoline demand and limiting near-term declines.

Oil markets aren’t exactly roaring. West Texas Intermediate started the week just under $60 a barrel and Brent hovered below $64, both down from a week earlier. OPEC keeps nudging production higher into December even as global growth cools, a combination that’s kept crude under pressure. China’s been stocking up barrels for storage; if that buying tapers, prices could soften further. The latest EIA readout shows US crude inventories up 5.2 million barrels but still about 4% under seasonal norms; the Strategic Petroleum Reserve edged to 409.6 million. Gasoline stocks fell another 4.7 million barrels to roughly 5% below the five-year average, distillates slipped 600,000, and refinery utilization eased to 86%. Implied gasoline demand, the EIA’s proxy for what drivers actually burn, ticked down to 8.874 million barrels per day.

For drivers, the price landscape remains a tale of medians and outliers. The most common pump price American motorists saw last week was $2.99, with a national median of $2.89 — about 14 cents under the headline average. Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi clustered in the mid-$2.50s, while California, Hawaii, and Washington lived in the $4-and-change reality. Diesel tells a similar story: a most-seen price near $3.79, a median around $3.69, and a gulf between bargain states like Texas in the low $3.20s and high-cost markets like Hawaii and California above $5.

Natrona County remains a welcome outlier just as holiday driving ramps up. With national averages creeping higher and inventories tight, holding $2.48 — let alone seeing $2.35 at the pump — isn’t just bragging rights. It’s real relief for wallets heading into Thanksgiving.