Gasoline prices see abnormal rise
As travelers prepare to hit the road for Thanksgiving, the trip is getting more expensive: Gasoline prices increased during the last week in most of the country, led by California and the other West Coast states, a federal report showed Monday.
Refinery maintenance and tight supplies drove the uncharacteristic mid-November surge as the price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in California rose 3.1 cents to $2.495, the third straight weekly increase, according to the Energy Department’s weekly survey of filling stations. The price was 4.2 cents higher than in the same period in 2005.
Motorists in the Pacific Northwest were hit even harder, however, driving West Coast prices up 3.5 cents as a whole to $2.473 a gallon, up 4 cents from the previous year.
Nationally, retail gasoline prices rose 0.7 cent to $2.239 for the week, 3.8 cents above the price in 2005. It was the second consecutive increase and the third in the last four weeks.
But analysts didn’t expect a sustained rise in prices in the coming weeks.
Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey, said he believed that the surge was abnormal and that prices would ease soon.
“The West Coast disconnect from the rest of the nation is continuing,” Kloza said. “It’s the one part of the country that is not enjoying plentiful gasoline imports. Just that and a couple of refinery snags are separating it from the rest of the nation.”
Carol Thorp, a spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, said that refinery maintenance was a factor in the rise, adding that some buyers wound up short of supplies and had to turn to higher priced spot markets.
“That always pushes prices up,” Thorp said.
One other factor might have been busy West Coast ports, some of which are experiencing record years for cargo container ships.
In the Port of Los Angeles, which recorded its biggest month ever in October, there have been no delays for container cargo, but some tankers have been slowed in getting to berths, said Manny Aschemeyer, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which tracks commercial vessel movements.
“There are fewer berths to work those cargoes,” he said.
The price of oil has continued to languish without much direction. January futures finished Monday down 17 cents to $58.80 a barrel on a national weather forecast featuring mild temperatures and the recent release by Nigerian rebels of oil workers who had been held hostage.
