In rural Alaska, fuel costs now matter of survival

BARROW, Alaska – A gallon of unleaded gasoline: $10. Heating fuel: $9.10 a gallon. Electricity: $1.17 per kilowatt hour


Soaring oil prices that swelled Alaska’s treasury have come back to slam the state, particularly its 170 rural villages.

Gov. Sarah Palin has proposed checks of $1,200 for each resident to help relieve some of the burden using a surplus from the oil-rich state treasury. Lawmakers are debating that proposal right now.

But in far-flung villages, the people expect things to get much worse. The seasonal barge shipments of fuel have yet to arrive, meaning villages are still paying last year’s prices, already a minimum of 60 cents higher than the U.S. average.

Here in Barrow, the nation’s northernmost city that lies just a few hundred miles west of the country’s largest oil field, Prudhoe Bay, residents pay $4.65 for a gallon of gas. When the barges come, that price tag will be closer to $7.

AP