This is an interesting story since I’ve been wondering about this myself. I thought maybe taxes had gone up in my state but the article gives a pretty good explanation why West Texas Intermediate crude isn’t really a good benchmark for gas prices right now.
Simple answer,
Retailers make money when the price of gas is going down.
The reason for this is, retailers have trouble passing on the price of increased on consumers and only do when as a whole the market goes up. When prices are declining there’s less of a push to decrease gas prices, and such retailers can keep their prices high and lock in profits.
The price of gasoline is sticky because of this.