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Western Alaska residents are preparing for an extended period of extra high fuel prices, after the war with Iran drove up the cost of energy globally.
That’s despite a tentative peace deal that brought some relief to global oil markets more recently, because the high spring prices for fuel in rural Alaska communities served by barges are mostly locked in.
Allen Ivanoff was one of those feeling the pinch in the Norton Sound community of Unalakleet. He was filling up his four-wheeler with gas on a recent mid-June day and had a chainsaw on the front to help collect firewood.
“To keep my fuel prices down at the house,” Ivanoff said.
For the last year, Unalakleet residents have paid $5.74 a gallon for gas. The price could jump to about $8 a gallon this year. For diesel, it might be over $9 a gallon.
Fuel delivered by barge this summer was largely priced when tankers were filled in May, during a period of high uncertainty and high prices. And because many villages only get one or two fuel deliveries a year, those prices are likely to stick until next summer.
Ivanoff said he hoped to have a huge stack of firewood ready to burn by winter. It’s time-consuming to collect but a lot cheaper than heating oil.
“If you can somehow subsidize heat for your house, keep your fuel prices down,” he said.
Unalakleet gets its fuel through Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation’s bulk fuel program. It teams up with 14 other villages to buy millions of gallons of diesel and gasoline. By buying together, they get lower prices. But they’re still higher than elsewhere in the state.
The corporation’s Chief Operating Officer, Tyler Rhodes, said the prices are based on an index of fuel prices throughout the month the tanker is filled up. The first tanker left port in May, and Rhodes said gas aboard it would cost about 40% more than residents currently pay at the pump. Diesel on the first shipment will be up more than 50%.
On the south side of Norton Sound in Stebbins, gas was already $7.57 a gallon, Stebbins City Administrator Daisy Katcheak said. Similar to Unalakleet, residents in the community have been hauling driftwood with boats and four wheelers to help heat their homes.
Just weeks before, the wood barreled down the Yukon River, which empties into the Bering Sea about 100 miles to the southwest.
In Stebbins, a 40% increase would put prices over $10 a gallon. Katcheak said residents are expecting an expensive winter and gathering firewood anyway they can.
“The wood is coming in from the Yukon right now. As it floats in early in the morning, you'll be seeing gentlemen fishing, hooking (for) the ones that do not have the transportation to go out there and get it,” Katcheak said.
Katcheak said 2022’s ex-typhoon Merbok knocked out power in the village of about 600, spoiling precious food reserves put away just months before. Since the storm, she said more people are learning how to preserve traditional foods like fish and vegetables.
On one hand, she said that’s helped preserve traditional ways of life.
“Because it's the healthiest food on earth, it's not processed,” she said. “I totally encourage my people to go to the wild game. More so than the store, but that's my opinion.”
The Stebbins Native Corporation runs the village gas station. With the season’s first barge just weeks away, Corporation President John Nashoanak said even he doesn’t know what the price will be. But Nashoanak said it’ll certainly be more expensive, and residents living on fixed incomes will have tough choices to make this winter.
“The other problem would be, either you buy the food or buy the heating, buy the heating fuel, to warm your house up,” Nashoanak said.
The region’s predominant fuel supplier, Crowley Fuels Alaska, said it plans to deliver approximately 37 million gallons of fuel this summer. Deliveries were already underway across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta coast in mid-June. Farther up the coast, Nome’s first bulk deliveries are expected by the end of June.
It’ll still be weeks or even months until last year’s supply is exhausted and the price for the upcoming year is set. Until then, residents across Western Alaska are left to do what Ivanoff and others are already doing: haul wood, put away food and wait.
