Why such drastic gas price differences in states starting with O?
Gasoline east of the Rockies and west of the Rockies are essentially separate markets, because transporting gasoline across the mountains is prohibitively expensive. So prices in each are set by the supply and demand specific to that market. Also, most gasoline sold in each market is refined at refineries within that part of the United States. So if gasoline has declined more in the eastern US, it means that either (1) the price of the crude oil input has declined more in that part of the country (not particularly likely); (2) demand has subsided more in the eastern US; or (3) the western US has greater supply pressures from full refineries.
