Pump Prices Climb in State

California pump prices edged up only slightly in the latest week and the national average backed away from a record high as this summer’s run-up in gasoline prices slowed in tandem with an easing of crude oil costs, the federal government said Monday.

The average price of self-serve regular in California rose 1.3 cents to $2.538 a gallon, still shy of the record $2.592 a gallon reached April 11, the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the Energy Department, said in its weekly pricing survey.

But the state’s average price remains 35.2 cents higher than a year earlier amid tight supplies and motorists’ continued strong demand for fuel.

Nationwide, the average price slipped 1.1 cents to $2.317 a gallon, the agency said. A week earlier, the national price had jumped more than a dime to a record $2.328 a gallon.

A key factor behind that surge was the jump in crude oil prices above $61 a barrel this month. But oil prices have since moved lower, and on Monday the U.S. benchmark grade of light crude for August delivery fell again by 77 cents to $57.32 a barrel.

Prices dropped after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries lowered its forecast for 2005 demand, citing reduced consumption in China and expectations of slower economic growth in other Asian countries.

OPEC estimated that world demand would rise by 1.6 million barrels a day, to 83.7 million barrels, which was 150,000 barrels a day less than its earlier forecast.

Prices also came under pressure as concern waned that Hurricane Emily, which slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Monday, would cause heavy damage to oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

The still-high energy costs continue to restrain the U.S. economy, and are forecast to shave three-quarters of a percentage point off this year’s growth in the U.S. gross domestic product, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in a letter Monday to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.

“Aside from these ‘headwinds,’ the U.S. economy seems to be coping pretty well with the run-up in crude oil prices,” Greenspan wrote in response to questions from Rep. H. James Saxton (R-N.J.), the committee chairman.