TIJUANA – A surge of drivers from the United States eager to escape record high gasoline prices flooded gas stations near the border crossings yesterday.
Motorists with California plates moved steadily through service stations.
Workers at the stations surveyed yesterday said they were keeping up with the increased demand for regular unleaded and premium gasoline. Diesel was in short supply or out at those stations selling it, workers said.
One station on Aeropuerto Boulevard ran out of diesel fuel at 8 a.m. yesterday, and premium fuel ran out at 4 p.m., workers said.
A station on Bellas Artes Boulevard, about two blocks from the Otay Mesa border crossing, began selling diesel only to its regular trucking customers Friday afternoon. Everyone else, Mexican or American, was turned away, a practice that manager Héctor López said would continue until he received another delivery.
López estimated that demand was up 30 percent from an ordinary weekend.
Workers at the stations surveyed attributed the increase to motorists from the United States.
Mexican gasoline comes from Pemex, the national oil company, and is subsidized by the federal government.
Regular unleaded (87 octane) gasoline sells for $2.54 per gallon in the city, premium (91 octane) for $3.20 per gallon and diesel for $2.20 per gallon.
Tijuana's stations get their gasoline from a Pemex plant in Rosarito Beach. Gas station workers said they had requested more gasoline from Pemex but were told that transportation problems would delay deliveries.
A spokeswoman for the association that represents the 157 gas stations in the city said last week that demand had increased 25 percent in the first five months of this year compared with 2007.
Freelance journalist Omar Millán González is a contributor to The San Diego Union-Tribune's Latino newspaper, Enlace.
