At $4.15, the national average sits about 8.6% above the 2012 Labor Day record of $3.82, roughly 9% below the May peak of $4.56, and six cents above the $4.09 that AAA data averaged through the end of August [15][16][17]. Taken together those three comparisons describe a price that has settled rather than one still moving, about six months after the Iran war began in late February and the Strait of Hormuz closed [1][22]. The holiday record is tied to a single calendar date; the plateau is what shows up in next quarter's fuel line.
Dispersion is where the operating exposure actually sits. On September 4, California pumped at $5.81 and Indiana at $3.45, a spread of $2.36 a gallon, or 1.68 times [9][10][18]. The year-on-year deltas do not track the level: Indiana, among the cheapest states, is up $0.22 a gallon on the year, while Texas, also among the cheapest, is up $0.91, about four times as much [10][11][21]. Buying cheap fuel and being insulated from the war premium are not the same position, and a variance report keyed to a single national figure will hide the difference.
Ten thousand gallons costs $9,100 more in Texas than it did a year earlier and $12,000 more in California, and it recurs in every month the plateau holds [19][20].
This is one Friday print, and the record itself is thin: $3.82 was a 2012 pump price, quoted by AAA without adjustment [5]. Both points stand, and AAA's own explanation is the part that answers them. Gasoline demand normally falls at this point in the year and pulls prices down with it, and AAA attributes this year's departure from that pattern to the high cost of crude oil [6]. That is a statement about the input, not about the weekend. What the record does not contain is a crude price, a forward curve, or any quantified split between the strait and everything else moving the barrel, so a firm claim about 2027 is not available from this evidence. Six months of history supports treating $4-plus as the base case for the next two quarters; it does not support more than that.
The relief on offer is explicitly time-boxed. Chevron's summer discount gives new rewards members $1 off a gallon for up to five fill-ups at participating stations, and Maverik's 15 cents a gallon, running since May 12, ends on Labor Day [7][8]. Those are worth taking and cannot be budgeted against. The decision this quarter is whether the fuel assumption gets rebased and where contracted volume is bought; the consequence next quarter is whether that rebase was struck against a plateau or against a price still $0.41 short of where May put it [16].
