Gas prices have come down a lot over the last month nationally from a largely spring surge, but not in Hawaii.

The Aloha State ranks last among 50 states for declines in the average price for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA.

Nationally, the decrease was 61 cents as of Friday compared with a month earlier, and eight states led by Ohio had drops of 70 cents to 82 cents. Hawaii’s decline was 11 cents, while the next smallest decrease was 30 cents for Idaho.

Hawaii’s meager reduction reflects unique longstanding dynamics of the local gas market that have been a financial pain in the side of consumers who historically have paid more for gas than residents in all, or nearly all, other states.

The local price decrease has been so small that some residents, including Scott Furuta, who filled his truck with gas in Kaimuki on Thursday, haven’t noticed.

Told about the dime-size dip, Furuta was appreciative.

“That’s great,” he said. “Any savings is good.”

Lisa Trumbull, who filled her hybrid SUV Thursday, also was unaware that gas prices have come down at all.

“I don’t even look,” she said. “I know that I live in one of the most expensive places in the nation. I don’t even bat an eye at that stuff. It’s the cost of living here in paradise.”

On Friday, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in Hawaii was $5.48. That’s down from $5.59 a month earlier and a peak of $5.62 on July 9. A year ago, the average was $4.09.

California is the only state with a higher price than Hawaii, at $5.64 Friday. California’s price a month ago was $6.30, or 66 cents more than Friday’s average.

Oil industry analysts have long said that the trend for Hawaii gas prices to quickly go up and slowly come down is a result of geographic isolation, small market size and not much wholesale competition.

“That’s Hawaii — we go up when everybody goes up and we never come down,” Frank Young, then-president of the Hawaii Automotive Repair and Gasoline Dealers Association, said in a 2004 Honolulu Advertiser interview after a rise and fall in oil prices that corresponded with only a rise in local gas prices.

State leaders in 2005 imposed a regulatory cap on wholesale gas prices, but that triggered wild retail price swings and the cap was repealed after eight months.

David Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates, a California-based transportation fuel consulting firm that analyzed Hawaii’s gas market for state government officials about 20 years ago, said the same market factors are essentially still at play today.

“Your prices are very sticky on the downside,” he said.

Hackett added that since the early 2000s there’s been some consolidation in wholesale competition contributing to the current downward stickiness.

In the early 2000s, Hawaii had two refineries making gas from oil. That changed in 2018 when Texas-based Par Pacific Holdings Inc., which owns one refinery along with 90 retail gas stations, bought the refinery assets of its competitor. However, the competitor, Island Energy Services, shifted to importing gas and also operates 60 retail gas stations.

Hackett said the moves by Par and Island Energy didn’t create a significant change in gas price dynamics for Hawaii.

Nationally, AAA said the gas price decline is driven by lower demand, which pushed up the U.S. gas supply, and weaker recent global oil prices.

“Consumers appear to be taking the pressure off their wallets by fueling up less,” AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross said in a Monday report. “And there’s reason to be cautiously optimistic that pump prices will continue to fall, particularly if the global price for oil does not spike. But the overall situation remains very volatile.”

On Thursday, AAA said a rise occurred in gas demand nationally over the prior week and could slow price decreases if upward demand continues.