AAA Carolinas expects gasoline supplies to increase over the weekend, although some local retailers think the Pee Dee might not see any benefits of new shipments until next week at the soonest.
Meanwhile, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster announced that at noon today (Saturday) he will renew the state’s price-gouging prohibition statute, which will remain in effect an additional 15 days.
Major shipments of gasoline are expected to reach terminals in Spartanburg as well as the North Carolina cities of Charlotte and Selma, according to AAA Carolinas. That would benefit areas that over the past week have suffered gas panics that led to shortages, including Aiken, Spartanburg and Greenville as well as Asheville, Charlotte and Greensboro in North Carolina.
Suppliers are likely to spread the shipments over a wider area so that many motorists will see benefits, AAA spokesman Tom Crosby said Friday.
“They don’t want to put any one community at risk or put them too far behind,” he said.
In the Pee Dee this past week, several Florence-area gas stations depleted their supplies of one or more grades of gasoline.
Tommy’s Quick Mart ran out overnight once last week, but has managed to keep all grades in stock since then, store manager Teresa Hartley said.
She expects the area’s gasoline supply would improve “maybe within the next week or so, she said.
“We deal with three distributors, and they’re still struggling to get gas,” she said.
One distributor Friday had a truck driver waiting in line for at least four hours in Charleston, uncertain of whether he’d even be able to load a shipment of gasoline, Hartley said.
And then distributors have to deal with a waiting list of stores hoping to receive shipments, she said.
Four of the 17 Houston-area refineries remain closed, while most are at partial or full operation and some expected to reach full capacity over the weekend, according to AAA.
AAA Carolinas encouraged motorists to avoid filling up until the weekend if their gas tank is at least one-fourth full. Crosby said that on any given day, most vehicles’ gas tanks are half-full, so when everyone wants to fill up, it leads to the type of panic that took place in Charlotte, among other areas.
Gasoline prices, meanwhile, dropped a penny from Thursday to Friday, when a gallon of unleaded gasoline cost an average of $3.81 in South Carolina, according to AAA.
The attorney general’s office said it has received nearly 4,000 complaints of gas price gouging since Sept. 12, when the first prohibition went into effect.
Florence County is one of 16 counties statewide in which the attorney general’s office has issued a civil subpoena requesting information about gas prices.
To report suspected price gouging, contact local law enforcement, call the state attorney general’s office at (803) 734-3970, or send an e-mail to GasPrices@SCAttorneyGeneral.com.
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