PROVIDENCE – Gasoline prices climbed for the seventh week in a row last week as the cost of a gallon rose 6 cents in Rhode Island and 8 cents in Massachusetts, AAA Southern New England reported today.
The auto club’s June 1 survey found the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular at Ocean State stations was $2.49 per gallon. That was up 6 cents from the average price last week and an increase of 83 cents since the start of the year, when the price stood at $1.66 per gallon. But it was below the double-digit increases seen during each of the previous three weeks.
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Although gasoline prices increase every spring in anticipation of summer demand, this year’s run-up has been the largest in more than a decade. Crude oil prices, which sank to nearly $30 a barrel last winter, have roughly doubled since then, jumping more than 30 percent in May alone.
Crude oil was trading above $67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning, its highest level since last November, Bloomberg News reported. But there are still doubts about whether the rally will last.
“All the attention is on the weaker dollar and macroeconomic sentiment,” Christopher Bellew, senior broker at Bache Commodities Ltd. in London, told Bloomberg. “The market has advanced a long way on flimsy fundamentals and may pause for breath or see a setback now.”
In its survey today, AAA found prices in Rhode Island ranging from $2.39 to $2.63 per gallon for unleaded regular.
At $2.49, the average price per gallon in Rhode Island is 2 cents lower than the average price nationwide of $2.51. And the current average is still $1.52 less than the statewide average a year ago of $4.01 per gallon.
In Massachusetts, the survey found the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular was $2.43 per gallon, up 8 cents from last week and 81 cents since January, but still 8 cents below the national average.
At stations in Rhode Island this week, the survey found average self-serve prices of $2.61 per gallon for midgrade unleaded, $2.72 for premium unleaded gasoline, and $2.42 for diesel.
Americans may do more driving this summer than originally had been forecast as they shake off the initial shock of the financial crisis, Richard Jones, deputy executive director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said at a conference today, according to Bloomberg.
“People are getting over the shock of the economic data, the financial crisis and the recession, and you are starting to see what are still anecdotal reports I think more than anything else of these so-called green shoots,” he said. “It’s changing attitudes in the market – I think that’s what it is.”
For more information, visit AAA.com.
