It’s become typical for gas prices to spike before and after major hurricane landfalls. The national average gasoline price jumped more than 30 cents per-gallon in the week following Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma could produce acute supply shortages for Florida and much of the Southeast for the rest of September. At first, the reasons for these spikes seem fairly straightforward. A disproportionate percentage of the nation’s refining capacity is located along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast , while a just-in-time fuel inventory system means gas stations run out quickly in parts of United States when a serious disruption occurs. The supply disruption during Hurricane Harvey was made worse by the flooding-related shutdown of the main pipeline that moves 2 million barrels a day of gasoline and diesel from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast. But there’s another largely invisible reason for the price spikes. Gas prices […]