By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

As a hurricane and tropical storm continues to dump near-record amounts of rain over the refinery-laden Texas coastline, its effects are already being felt at gas pumps in Marion County.

Although the storm’s devastation might seem far away, gas prices at local pumps have risen six cents a gallon over the last four days.

Delbert Peters, controller at Cooperative Grain and Supply, which operates Ampride stations throughout the county, said the price of unleaded gasoline with no ethanol was $2.36 per gallon last Friday and stood at $2.42 per gallon Tuesday morning.

The price of E10 unleaded gas has also risen five cents per gallon during that time, Peters said.

“Almost all our products come from the McPherson refinery,” Peters said.

The McPherson refinery uses 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

Crude oil travels to the refinery through a network of pipelines, with the product moving whichever direction it is needed.

“It will eventually affect McPherson,” Peters said.

Oil production in Houston is already shut down, Peters said.

“As the hurricane approached Houston, all the offshore oil rigs were shut down for the safety of the workers,” Peters said. “There are huge refineries along the Texas coast all the way up to Louisiana.”

Peters said Ampride prices don’t rise until the price at the McPherson refinery rises, but he expects that will soon happen.

“If we get product in, I expect in the next few days our price will go higher,” Peters said.

Ampride’s cost has already risen 12 cents over the last week, but the pump price has been increased five cents, Peters said.

He hopes the flooding and shutdown of refineries is short-lived.

Casey’s General Store corporate office did not return a call. The price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline at Casey’s increased 10 cents Tuesday afternoon.