PROVIDENCE – Gasoline prices have resumed their climb upward, adding 4 cents from last week, AAA Southern New England reported Monday.
The auto club’s Dec. 27 survey found the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular at Ocean State stations was $3.14 per gallon. Prices have risen for seven of the past eight weeks.
Crude oil fell from a two-year high in New York as China’s second interest-rate increase since October bolstered concern that economic growth will slow in the biggest energy-consuming country, Bloomberg News reported.
Futures snapped five days of gains after the People’s Bank of China boosted benchmark one-year lending and deposit rates by 25 basis points Dec. 25 to curb inflation. Oil advanced earlier as temperatures fell and storms blanketed the Eastern United States with snow, raising demand for heating fuel.
“There’s a feeling that the Chinese interest-rate move will slow economic growth,” said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc., a trading-advisory company in New Canaan, Conn. “This could diminish demand for energy or at least slow projected growth, which has powered the recent rally.”
Crude oil for February delivery fell 31 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $91.20 a barrel at 12:12 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures earlier climbed to $91.88 a barrel, the highest level since Oct. 7, 2008. Prices are up 15 percent this year.
The exchange delayed the opening of floor trading until 11 a.m., two hours later than usual, because of the snow storm, said Brenda Guzman, a spokeswoman. Electronic trading on the NYMEX was not affected, she told Bloomberg News.
In its survey, AAA found prices in Rhode Island ranging from $3.04 to $3.29 per gallon for unleaded regular. At $3.14, the average price per gallon in Rhode Island is 10 cents above the national average.
A year ago, gas prices in Rhode Island stood at $2.63 per gallon.
In Massachusetts, pump prices rose for the fourth consecutive week, reaching $3.03 per gallon. The average price of self-serve, unleaded regular increased by 3 cents from last week and 44 cents from a year earlier.
At stations in Rhode Island this week, the survey found average self-serve prices of $3.25 per gallon for midgrade unleaded, $3.36 for premium unleaded gasoline, and $3.34 for diesel.
