Comment on the April 30 prediction: Basically correct, as we haven’t seen a hike since then, and prices have dipped down near $3 in most places in the region.

Sunday, May 11, 2025, 8 AM: Happy Mother’s Day! Lately, the push-and-pull on gas prices has been a mix of lower oil prices ($60 a barrel) vs. summer gas formulation and demand. The result in west Michigan is retail prices near $3, except in certain places, such as my drive to work along Lake Michigan Drive, which held above $3.30 all last week. Along that strip, the usual low-price leaders have not led.

With an uptick in wholesale prices on Friday, I think they are itching to get back to $3.39 across the board, and I predict they’ll try that soon. Whether it will be a “powerful” hike embraced by all or a “shallow” attempt (Hello, Marathon?) is unclear at the moment. -EA

Comment on the April 20 prediction: If you stretch the definition of “this week” to include the following Sunday, April 27, and accept that the hike didn’t really kick in until Monday, then the prediction of a hike to $3.39 was CORRECT.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025, 9 AM: I watched wholesale gas prices tick up a week ago and thought that $3.29 or $3.39 was imminent. It was not, and instead, many stations found their way to $2.99 last week, so much so that it looked a bit like a system-wide reset. Then, on Sunday, after I ran in the Izzo 5K at MSU, I saw an Admiral near the MSU campus post $3.39, and a few other stations in the state followed suit (e.g., Marathons). Then, the next day (Monday), we got a “powerful” reset to $3.39, and I haven’t come across a station yet that did not comply.

$3.39 is the highest price for gas in Michigan since October.

This was also one of those hikes that seemed to trigger a drop in wholesale prices, starting with oil, which is back to $60 a barrel, like it was a few days after the tariff “Liberation Day”. That tells me to expect lower prices and shop around as we head toward the weekend. -EA

Comment on the April 13 prediction: Completely WRONG, as they jacked up prices to $3.29 in Michigan on the 15th, and at least in west Michigan, that hike was embraced by pretty much all of the retailers.

Sunday, April 20, 2025, 8 AM: It was disappointing to see the price hike on Tax Day last week, and we aren’t reaping the short-term benefits of tariff-anxiety-inspired drops in oil prices. Really, gas should be below $3 right now. From the 15th to the 19th, though, some of the retailers agreed, such as the Meijer in Cascade, which jumped to $3.29 on Tuesday but was back to $2.99 by Friday.

I am starting to think about some sort of rating system for price hikes. There are the “powerful” hikes that all the stations embrace as soon as possible and prices hold at that level for several days; the “shallow” hikes that are embraced broadly but some retailers back off after a few days; and then there are the “lame” hikes that one or two brands try to start while the rest of the retailers ignore.

I am going to work on this rating system more, just for fun, but it looks like last week’s hike was a “shallow” one. Looking into this week, if anything, there was a bit of an uptick on oil prices since Tuesday, so they may want a “powerful” reset to $3.29 this week. Or even $3.39. -EA

Comment on the April 6 prediction: Basically CORRECT, as prices fell all last week, as low as $2.75 in Greenville. Some stubborn stations remain above $3.19, though.

Sunday, April 13, 2025, 3 PM: Last week, oil dropped below $60 a barrel before recovering a bit at the end of the week. Wholesale gas prices have been following, albeit slowly. Our tell is Costco, as their price is a reasonable estimate of the 0-cent margin price. For the Costco that I follow in Grand Rapids, a gallon of gas went from $3.24 on April 3 to $2.88 this afternoon. Unless something newly bizarre happens with this “trade war”, prices should continue to drop across the board, towards $2.69 a gallon. If nothing else, look for stations under $3 a gallon. -EA

Sunday, April 6, 2025, 12 Noon: I am back from a trip to Southern California, home of $4+ gasoline. And things have been kind of crazy in Midwestern Gas Game land.

First, we had a Sunday hike a week ago, to $3.39. What happened there? Wholesale prices jumped a bit at the end of March, as the “summer gas” mix continues to kick in. It appeared to me that generally this hike occurred across west Michigan, and for whatever reason, our retailer friends didn’t want to wait until Monday. That happens every few years.

Then, late Wednesday, President Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, and if The Gas Game was a board game, it was like someone knocked the board off of the table in frustration. You probably heard on the news about stocks selling off hard, but a related story was that oil prices did the same. Wednesday’s quote was $71.71 a barrel. At the close Friday, 13% lower to $62.72, which is the lowest it has been since April 2021. Back then, prices were in the $2.80’s and $2.90’s, and that’s where we are going again. (Prediction!)

But how do we get there? Driving around the Grand Rapids area on Sunday morning, I spotted $3.39 and $3.25 on Plainfield Avenue and $3.09 off of I-96 in Walker. Gas Buddy spotters have noticed some prices below $3 today. Look around for bargains like that. -EA

Comment on the March 15 prediction: It is as if they read the prediction and said, “WRONG, Ed”. An hour after I posted it, I was driving through Lowell and saw that Big M had posted a new price of $3.29. That was surprising, to say the least, but given past failures of Big M to start a region-wide hike, I didn’t worry about it. The rest of the region raised prices to $3.29 on Tuesday the 18th.

Sunday, March 23, 2025, 2 PM: So, what happened last week? Switching over to the “summer gas” blend added about 12 cents per gallon to the wholesale price last Monday, and the retailers passed that along to drivers. You could tell this was legit because Costco also raised their price, although it took a few days. If there is good news, there are prices of $3.07 – $3.09 scattered about, either because those stations didn’t follow the leaders last Tuesday or we have some good ol’ Gas Game competition going on.

What’s next? There are no obvious signs in the wholesale market of a further hike. I will be keeping an eye on whether the gasoline markets start moving in anticipation of the tariff “Liberation Day” of April 2. -EA