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Gas prices in Mich. at highest level since 9/11
Associated Press
FILE PHOTO
A gas advertisement from just two weeks ago. Prices are at their highest since 9/11.
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Gasoline prices are up across the state. This is the third consecutive week that gas prices have jumped to the highest level since September 2001, AAA Michigan said this Monday. The statewide average price for a gallon of self-serve regular rose to about $1.67, up 9.5 cents from last week.
The average is 54.5 cents a
gallon more than it cost during this week a year ago. Over the past three weeks, the statewide average price of gas has risen a total of 18.2 cents.
In the Detroit, the same gallon averaged $1.66, up 10.3 cents from last week and up 54.1 cents from a year ago.
The weekly report is based on surveys of 300 gas stations around
Michigan.
The average weighted price for gasoline nationwide, including all grades and taxes, was about $1.63 per gallon Friday, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations nationwide. Gas cost about $1.52 a gallon on Jan. 24, the date of the last survey.
Higher prices follow price hikes for crude oil and home heating oil.
Over the past two months, crude oil prices have risen by $8.19 a barrel to $35.12, largely due to fears of war in the Persian Gulf and the oil production strike in Venezuela.
In mid-January, AAA Michigan said Monday that statewide prices for a gallon of self-serve regular rose 2.6 cents over one, to an average of about $1.54.
That’s 17.5 cents higher than it cost in December and 42 cents more than it cost a year ago. average about $1.48.
Last year, Venezuela shipped about 1.5 million barrels a day of crude and refined gasoline into the United States, about 13 percent of U.S. imports.
Its refineries, now largely shut down, are a major source of U.S. gasoline imports.
If war erupts in Iraq, all bets are off on predicting prices, said agency petroleum analyst David Costello.
Last week, the United States Energy Department forecast that gasoline prices nationwide would rise to an average of $1.54 for each gallon by mid-spring, 2003.
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