Valley residents are feeling the pain at the pump as the average price of fuel around the Valley stands at $2.99.

That’s three cents below the state average. 

Gas was $1.85 this time last year.

"The current gas prices forced me to rearrange my budget because now I'm having to pay more to fuel up," Daniel De Leon said. He has four children under the age of five.

“One of them is in elementary and two others are in daycare, so I'm constantly driving from Pharr to Mission and back, so this gas increase is definitely affecting us," De Leon said, adding that it’s now costing him nearly $20 more to fill up his minivan.

AAA spokesman Daniel Armbruster said gas prices typically fall around this time – but that’s not the case this year because of crude oil prices.

"For right now they're going up, and it looks like they at least going to be going up for the next few weeks," Armbruster said.

Supply chain disruptions are also playing a role in the high gas prices. 

"What we have here is an increase in demand, rise in demand because the world is emerging from the pandemic. Life is getting back to normal."

Dr. Gautam Hazarika – an associate professor of economics at UTRGV - said oil companies are having trouble rationing supply and ramping it back up after reducing it during the pandemic.

“There's a big push towards cleaner energy and all that in many large economies of the world so looking at this oil companies are kind of reluctant to increase supply knowing full well that customers are kind of reluctant to buy their products."

Hazarika also doesn't believe the price of gas will go down anytime soon, which means people may have to make adjustments to their budget.