Gas Prices Continue to Go Up : Transportation: Wholesale cost increases are being passed along to station owners. The onset of summer is also blamed.

Consumers cursed and gas station owners grumbled Wednesday as gasoline prices in Ventura County continued rising to a level that some called an all-time high.

Exxon and Shell Oil Co. have passed higher wholesale gasoline prices on to many of their stations over the past two weeks, forcing the station owners to raise their pump prices in what experts call an industry tradition--charging more for gas as motorists launch their summer vacations.

Many other stations are matching those prices, according to an informal Times survey of 35 county gas stations.

The survey found prices ranging from the low of $1.249 a gallon for self-serve regular unleaded at a Thrifty Gas Station in west Ventura to the highest price of nearly $1.94 for a gallon of full-serve premium at Buena Chevron in east Ventura.

The lowest-priced gasoline found in the survey Wednesday was 25 cents higher than the lowest-priced gasoline found in a similar survey in January, 1991.

“It’s too . . . high,” said refinery worker Gary Potter, 31, swearing as he pumped the $1.24-a-gallon regular unleaded into his battered Chevrolet pickup truck at the Thrifty station on Ventura Avenue. “Somebody’s trying to get rich.”

“I think it’s unfair, but what can you do?” said construction worker Graciano Yanez, 50, as he gassed up his ice-blue Camaro nearby. “You gotta get to work and back.”

“It’s really high. . . . It’s ridiculous,” said home-care aide Celia Cook, 30, buying just enough gas to get her to the hospital from the Buena Chevron station, where prices ranged from $1.359 to $1.939 a gallon. Later, she would try to find a cheaper station, she said.

“A lot of people are upset about it,” said Brian Lunetta, manager of Buena Chevron. “They have to vent,” often to attendants who have no control over prices, he said.

“Gas prices always go up in early summer and we just tell them that,” Lunetta said. “But basically, when you’re talking to the guy out there on the island pumping the gas, they’re the bottom of the food chain in the petroleum industry. Unless you get the manager, you can’t expect this kid to know why. It’s like going into Black Angus and asking the busboy why the steak costs so much.”

Prices are rising because of the season and because the oil industry is saddling retailers with corporate costs that it must face, said industry analyst Trilby Lundberg.

“Prices have risen dramatically both nationally and--especially from late March forward through early May--in Southern California,” said Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Letter, a nationwide survey of gasoline and oil prices.

The pre-summer increase has been compounded by new California air-pollution restrictions that forced the oil companies to spend more money to make cleaner gasoline, a cost that they passed on to consumers, Lundberg said.

“It’s about the highest I’ve ever had for full-serve,” said Rock Long, who has owned his Chevron station in Oak View for 12 years. Full-serve gas prices there range from $1.649 to $1.849.

Customers are taking the increase in stride, he said, adding, “I don’t think they’ll really start screaming until it goes over $2 a gallon.”

Some station owners complained that the price hikes have put them in a quandary.

Unocal 76 station owner Don Gurke said he can’t win:

He can either lose money by swallowing price hikes, or he can raise prices and suffer a sales loss because his customers switch to cheaper stations. He has had to do both in the past two months, he said.

Meanwhile, Gurke said, he has to tie up more money in inventory by paying higher wholesale prices to keep enough gas on hand in his underground tanks. Last month, he had to spend $23,000 from his family’s savings account just to keep the station open, he said.

“I wish everybody would park their cars for about three days and not buy a gallon of gas,” Gurke said. “That would hurt the oil companies. But people don’t do it. That’s the only way you can get back at them.”

However, prices will drop again, predicted station owner Long.

“If tradition holds up, the gas price will come back down by the end of the summer,” he said. “It always has, barring some world conflict. It always comes back down.”

Gasoline Prices SELF-SERVICE

Low High Regular unleaded $1.249 $1.359 Super unleaded $1.249 $1.459 Premium unleaded $1.389 $1.569

FULL SERVICE

Low High Regular unleaded $1.349 $1.739 Super unleaded $1.459 $1.839 Premium unleaded $1.539 $1.939

Source: A random survey of Ventura County service stations conducted Wednesday by The Times.