Jun 6, 2008 9:51 pm US/Pacific
Pain At The Pump Pummeling Southern California
LOS ANGELES
Gas prices hitting $5 by July 4? Unthinkable! But the possibility is fast on the way to becoming reality after the largest weekly increase in the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline since August 2003.
The Automobile Club of Southern California reported that the average price of regular gasoline in Los Angeles and Orange Counties has now risen over $4.30.
The Los Angeles County average increased 22.7 cents to $4.339, 44 cents more than last month and 98 cents more than at this time last year.
In Orange County, the average rose 22.3 cents to $4.313, which is 44.2 cents more than last month and $1.006 more than this time last year.
Record highs are now a regular thing – this new spike in prices is the ninth time in the past 10 weeks that the averages have hit record highs.
"The last time that weekly gas prices rose by more than three cents a day locally was in August 2003, when several refinery outages and an Arizona gasoline pipeline shutdown caused a major supply issue," Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring said.
"Oil industry analysts say that California refineries have begun producing more diesel fuel and less gasoline, creating a need to import more costly unleaded fuel from out-of-state and overseas."
There is some hope now that crude oil and California wholesale gasoline prices have dropped, and several Midwestern and Southern states have seen slight gas price decreases in the past week.
Los Angeles County's average increased 15.3 cents from May 23-30; 4.5 cents from May 16-23 and 1.8 cents from May 9-16. In Orange County, the average increased 15.1 cents from ay 23-30; 5.5 cents from May 16-23 and 1.3 cents from May 9-16.
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