State’s gasoline prices well above national average, at $3.36 per gallon

? Gasoline prices in Kansas are well above the national average, and one retailer near tornado-wrecked Greensburg was charging 23 cents more than the state norm.

The Kansas average Tuesday was $3.36 per gallon for regular unleaded, compared with the national average of $3.20, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. A month ago the Kansas pump average was $2.77 a gallon and $2.85 nationwide.

Kiowa County commissioners remarked during their meeting Monday about regular unleaded fuel selling for $3.59 a gallon at the Convenience Xpress in Mullinville, 10 miles from Greensburg, the Hutchinson News reported.

A powerful May 4 tornado demolished nearly every residential and commercial building in Greensburg and claimed 10 lives in the town. Tornadoes killed three others that weekend elsewhere in Kansas.

Kemp Cunningham, the chief financial officer of Overland Park-based Convenience Xpress, blamed the higher price in Mullinville on the weather-related shutdown of a fuel terminal in Great Bend. Now, he said, fuel that would have been hauled from Great Bend comes from McPherson, which is 33 miles farther away.

“We’re having suppliers in Kansas run out of fuel,” Cunningham said. “We’re having to sit in line for hours.”

He has directed store management to show customers what the company spent on the fuel.

The $3.59-a-gallon price reflected fuel that cost $3.35 a gallon, Cunningham said. Credit card use takes about 12 cents a gallon from the seller, he said. That effectively raises the company’s cost on that gallon to $3.47.