PROVIDENCE – Gasoline prices rose to levels last seen in August 2008 in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, AAA Southern New England said.
The auto club’s April 11 survey found the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular at Ocean State stations was $3.73, up 11 cents this week and 17 cents over the past two weeks.
Locally, prices were 4 cents less expensive than the national average of $3.77; prices ranged from $3.61 to $3.83. A year ago, the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular was $2.77.
In Massachusetts, prices advanced 7 cents to $3.63.
Meanwhile, in New York, oil fell from a 30-month high after the International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecasts for the U.S. and Japan, indicating high oil prices pose a risk to global economic expansion, Bloomberg News reported.
Crude tumbled as much as 1.1 percent as the IMF’s World Economic Outlook predicted higher oil prices and the pace of job gains will restrain the U.S. economic recovery. Oil also fell after the African Union said Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi agreed to a cease-fire plan.
The IMF “clearly engendered some downward price pressure across a number of financial markets, including crude oil,” said Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics, an energy advisory firm in Austin, Texas. “We’re looking at pretty solid global growth, it’s just a deceleration of growth.”
Oil for May delivery fell 69 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $112.10 a barrel at 10:50 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures settled at $112.79 a barrel on April 8, the highest closing price since Sept. 22, 2008. Prices have risen 32 percent in the past year.
At stations in Rhode Island this week, the survey found average self-serve prices of $3.84 per gallon for midgrade unleaded, $3.95 for premium unleaded gasoline and $4.10 for diesel.
