Price Jump at the Pump Highest in About 10 Years

Gasoline prices experienced their biggest jump in nearly a decade, rising about more than 8 cents per gallon at the pump during the last two weeks as global changes reduced a supply glut, an analyst said Sunday.

The increase was only the second since September and followed a half-cent hike recorded two weeks ago.

The weighted average, including all grades and taxes, was $1.09 per gallon on Friday, up 8.4 cents from two weeks earlier, according to the Lundberg Survey of 10,000 gas stations nationwide.

The sharpest rise, averaging 14 cents, was in the Midwest. The smallest, a nickel, was in the West.

Rising crude oil prices were to blame, and the causes for that are complex, involving global politics and local disasters, analyst Trilby Lundberg said from Texas, where she is attending a refiners’ conference in San Antonio.

Factors include the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ announcement that it plans to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day and the Feb. 23 explosion at a Tosco Corp. oil refinery in Martinez, Calif., that killed four people and sent gasoline buyers chasing alternative supplies.

Other reasons range from disruption of Iraq’s oil pipeline by U.S. air raids to greater demand due to an improving world economy, Lundberg said.

The glut that sent prices plunging to a 12-year low also played a role by causing a shakeout among small producers.

“There are substantial casualties in the oil patch, especially small independents in the U.S.,” she said.

Lundberg said the price hike is the largest and fastest jump since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Even so, she noted, prices are only a penny above last year’s and remain nearly 24 cents under the $1.33 figure recorded when the price crash began in September 1997.

Self-service prices were $1.03 per gallon for regular. Full-service prices were $1.44 for regular.