Gasoline Prices Zip Toward $3 Mark

Gasoline prices on Monday continued their push toward $3 per gallon. The only question now is, when?

While the per gallon cost of higher grade gasoline is at or over $3 at several Newtown stations, most of the locations canvassed on January 12 were maintaining prices of $2.99 or less per gallon for regular grade.

According to the Oil Price Information Service, which supplies information to AAA, the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gas was $2.89 midweek, up from $1.83 per gallon one year ago.

Gasoline prices have been jumping on the back of a strong oil market, where the cost for a barrel has spiked 20 percent in the past month on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Skyrocketing gasoline prices could not come at a worse time for motorists, who will see heating bills jump after the worst cold spell in years.

Oil prices are now about three times what they were a year ago.

“There is a long history of tripled oil prices causing consternation among consumers,” Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover said in a report January 11. “We are not there, yet, but gasoline prices at more than $3 is certainly an unwelcome sign of consumer distress.”

Prices rose 1.4 cents overnight to $2.749 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express, and Oil Price Information Service. Prices have climbed 8.4 cents a gallon in the past week and are 95.5 cents higher than a year ago.

Prices almost always tick up toward the spring as more people begin to drive and refiners switch over to cleaner burning fuels as required by law.

The AAA survey shows prices have jumped eight cents or more in the past week in many parts of the country, including Dallas, Chicago, Miami, and Columbus, Ohio.

Motorists are paying about $50 more a month for gasoline than a year ago, and the total fuel bill for Americans now tops $1 billion per day compared with $650 million per day last year. Add in heating oil and diesel fuel, and the total fuel bill is probably $400 million to $550 million more each day than a year ago, said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Services.

Mr Kloza said in an email that he sees prices rising by another five or ten cents a gallon for now, but that drivers will not pay $3 for gas until spring.