Colorado Springs gas prices dropped by nearly 20 cents a gallon over the last week to a two-month low and should continue to fall further as the calendar flips to April, according to travel organization AAA.

A gallon of unleaded regular averaged $3.69 a gallon Tuesday; that’s down 18.7 cents from $3.877 a week ago and 46.9 cents lower than $4.159 a month ago, AAA’S daily fuel price tracker shows.

Statewide, gas prices averaged $3.742 on Tuesday, 14.8 cents lower than last week and a 36-cent drop from $4.102 last month.

Gas prices have started to drop as a greater supply of fuel becomes available from the Suncor Energy refinery in Commerce City, north of Denver, said Skyler Mckinley, AAA Colorado’s regional director of public affairs.

Canadian-based Suncor had closed the refinery in late December after equipment was damaged at the facility by extreme, below-zero temperatures that month, according to the company. Around the same time, two employees were injured in a pair of fires at the facility.

The refinery’s closure sent gas prices soaring in Colorado; the facility supplies about 40% of the gasoline used by state motorists, according to the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, an industry trade group.

Suncor initially said it targeted a late first quarter reopening of the refinery. On Feb. 9, the company issued a public notification that said it was conducting repairs and a restart of Plant 2 at the refinery. On March 3, a similar public notice said Suncor was poised to launch a “progressive restart” of the facility’s Plants 1 and 3.

Suncor officials didn’t respond to a Gazette email Tuesday seeking additional information

about the status of the refinery.

“The great news is that we’re starting to see some of the softening (in prices) related to Suncor supply coming back,” Mckinley said. “That explains the stabilization and the weekover-week decreases. I think we’re down something like 15 cents from this time last week on a statewide level.”

And as more supply becomes available from Suncor’s refinery, prices should continue to decline in April, Mckinley said.

At the same time, the fallout from the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in California and other banking issues have triggered a plunge in crude oil prices, Mckinley said. Last week, global oil prices fell to the $60-per-barrel range, their lowest point since August 2021, he said.

“We’ll probably see some continual softening (of prices) from that, both in Colorado and nationally,” Mckinley said. “That’s going to be the case for March and April; we’ll see steadily declining prices.”

But today’s lower fuel prices need to be kept in context, Mckinley said.

Though trending downward, prices still are more than $1 per gallon higher than pre-pandemic years, he said. At this time in 2017, unleaded regular averaged $2.18 per gallon in Colorado; in 2018, it was $2.45; and in 2019, $2.46.

“These are still abnormally high prices for this time of year,” Mckinley said. “And Coloradans continue to notice that.”

Looking toward the summer, it’s difficult to predict where prices will land, he said.

Even as gas prices have fallen of late service stations, convenience stores and other fuel outlets will switch to more expensive summer blends in the next few months, Mckinley said. Also, many people are traveling and the demand for fuel is surging, which could send prices higher.

Mckinley said he expects summer prices to wind up lower than in 2022, when Colorado Springs gas prices spiked to a record high of $4.92 a gallon on June 21, AAA figures show. Prices, however, still might be higher than in 2021, when they averaged roughly around $3.40 a gallon on July 1.

“From a motorist’s perspective, had it not been for last year, we would all be very, very upset with the prices that we’re going to pay this summer,” Mckinley said. “But I am confident they will be lower than last year.”