advertisement
Alongside crocuses and baseball, there's a new harbinger of spring: the gasoline price run-up.
After 11 consecutive weeks of price increases, U.S. motorists last week were paying $2.88 a gallon, up 27 cents in just three weeks and 33% since late January.
Americans are no longer waiting until summer to hit the road, the Energy Information Administration says, with March and April demand strong for several years.
"For years, the typical summer driving season was considered to occur between the Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays," the agency said in a recent analysis. "While this characterization still holds, in recent years, demand patterns have shifted somewhat to include more robust levels of gasoline demand earlier in the season with a pre-summer peak in gasoline prices."
What's different now
But this is a spring price peak with a vengeance. Even with the new average price nearly 10 cents a gallon higher than a year ago, weekly U.S. motor-fuel demand reached a record high for April. Meanwhile, supplies were even tighter than they would have been with the usual slowdown in gasoline production, as refiners switch to making fuels that meet special environmental requirements for summer.Two major refinery fires, one at BP's giant Whiting, Ind., facility and the other at Valero Energy's McKee plant in Sunray, Texas, will result in lost gasoline production for weeks.
In California, where special clean fuels are required by law, production of gasoline dropped 7% in one week, with a fire at a Chevron facility in Richmond and an unplanned outage at the BP refinery in Carson. The average price for regular grade in California was $3.31 per gallon, 41 cents a gallon above last year's price.
More from MSN Money and U.S. News & World Report
It's hotly debated whether gas prices in the rest of the country will pass the $3 mark. Energy Department forecasters believe the market will calm, and they project a $2.81 average pump price this summer, 3 cents lower than last year. The American Automobile Association agrees, reasoning that the market has breached $3 only after unusual disruptions, such the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005 and the Israel-Lebanon conflict last summer, spokesman Geoff Sundstrom says.
But other analysts look at the pressure on the market -- underscored by nine consecutive weeks of drawdown in the nation's gasoline inventories -- and expect the pain at the pump to get much worst. "We need to see an incredible gas production turnaround to catch up with insatiable demand," says Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading in Chicago.
- Video: Summer gas prices
David Pursell, an analyst at Pickering Energy Partners in Houston, predicts $3-or-more gas at the pump this summer. "People will complain about it," he told Reuters, "but will probably keep driving."
Gas prices by state
The prices below are from a daily survey of up to 85,000 stations compiled by AAA.| Gas prices by state | |||
|---|---|---|---|
State | Regular | State | Regular |
Alaska | $2.73 | Montana | $2.89 |
Alabama | $2.78 | North Carolina | $2.85 |
Arkansas | $2.77 | North Dakota | $2.84 |
Arizona | $2.96 | Nebraska | $2.87 |
California | $3.35 | New Hampshire | $2.75 |
Colorado | $2.83 | New Jersey | $2.67 |
Connecticut | $2.98 | New Mexico | $2.90 |
District of Columbia | $2.99 | Nevada | $3.09 |
Delaware | $2.78 | New York | $2.98 |
Florida | $2.91 | Ohio | $2.78 |
Georgia | $2.78 | Oklahoma | $2.71 |
Hawaii | $3.10 | Oregon | $3.09 |
Iowa | $2.77 | Pennsylvania | $2.83 |
Idaho | $2.87 | Rhode Island | $2.83 |
Illinois | $2.92 | South Carolina | $2.73 |
Indiana | $2.82 | South Dakota | $2.80 |
Kansas | $2.79 | Tennessee | $2.75 |
Kentucky | $2.77 | Texas | $2.78 |
Louisiana | $2.79 | Utah | $2.82 |
Massachusetts | $2.77 | Virginia | $2.80 |
Maryland | $2.88 | Vermont | $2.83 |
Maine | $2.85 | Washington | $3.12 |
Michigan | $2.83 | Wisconsin | $2.89 |
Minnesota | $2.71 | West Virginia | $2.93 |
Missouri | $2.71 | Wyoming | $2.72 |
Mississippi | $2.77 | U.S. average | $2.86 |
Source: AAA Fuel Gauge Report, April 19
This article was reported and written by Marianne Lavelle for U.S. News & World Report.
Rate this Article
High
