Motorists in Perry County are paying more at the pump than anywhere else in Alabama, a pattern that has persisted for months and widened sharply in recent weeks as a surge in global oil prices drives up costs statewide.
According to AAA data, Perry County’s average price for regular unleaded stood at $3.40 per gallon as of March 11, the highest in the state and well above the Alabama average of roughly $3.28. The county has consistently ranked at or near the top of Alabama’s county-by-county gas price rankings throughout the past year.
The statewide spike follows a rapid escalation in crude oil prices tied to the conflict in the Middle East, including Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil shipping corridor. Alabama’s average price jumped more than 30 cents in a single week in early March — the fastest weekly increase since 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rattled global energy markets. A year ago, Alabamians were paying around $2.75 per gallon on average.
But while global events explain the recent surge, they do not fully explain why Perry County consistently lands at the top of the list. Fuel industry analysts point to a combination of structural factors that make rural counties like Perry particularly vulnerable to high prices.
Fewer gas stations means less competition, and with less competition there is less pressure on any single station to lower its price. Rural stations also tend to sell lower volumes of fuel, meaning they turn over their inventory more slowly — a dynamic that can cause prices to stay elevated longer when costs are rising, and drop more slowly when wholesale prices fall.
“If somebody across town lowers their price, it’s more likely the other stations lower their price and eventually everybody does,” Rob Godby, a business professor at the University of Wyoming who studies rural fuel markets, has said. “If you have fewer stations, it’s less likely that happens.”
Transportation costs compound the problem. The U.S. Energy Information Administration notes that retail gas prices tend to be higher the farther fuel must travel from refineries, pipelines, and distribution terminals to the point of sale — a disadvantage for rural Black Belt counties that are not near major fuel infrastructure.
The timing of the current spike adds another layer: March is when refineries transition to producing summer-blend gasoline, a cleaner-burning formulation required by the EPA that costs more to produce. That seasonal switch typically adds 20 to 30 cents per gallon to production costs and falls squarely on consumers at a time when global prices are already elevated.
For Perry County residents, who often have no nearby alternative and may travel significant distances for work, the combination of the county’s structural pricing disadvantage and the current global surge hits harder than it does in more urban areas of the state.
