By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

Maine’s average cash price for No. 2 heating oil reached $2.08 per gallon Monday, a 3-cent increase on the week.

That’s an all-time high for heating oil, unadjusted for inflation.

It’s also 17 cents more than the commodity cost at the end of February, and 56 cents more than No. 2 was selling for a year ago.

Kerosene, meanwhile, rose to $2.34 per gallon, up 2-cents on the week and 55 cents higher than a year ago.

Propane, at $2.03 per gallon, was up a penny from a week earlier and 30 cents more than last year at this time.

The figures come from the State Planning Office, which surveys dealers statewide each week during the heating season to monitor home energy prices.

The office said the $2.08 state average for No. 2 closely matches the national average residential heating oil price of $2.088 for the period ending March 7.

Increasing home energy prices are mirroring higher prices that traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange are willing to pay for a barrel of crude oil. Crude closed Monday up 52 cents for April delivery, at $54.95 a barrel.

Continued cold and sometimes stormy weather in the Northeast is maintaining demand for heating oil regionally. That, coupled with increased global demand, the result largely of expanding economies in China and India, are pushing crude prices to near record levels.

Oil production is said to be nearing capacity in many nations, and refining capacity is reaching unprecedented rates, said the SPO.

Besides high heating fuel prices, motorists are paying more for gasoline at the pumps. The national average for all grades of gasoline reached $2.098 Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. The New England average for a gallon of regular unleaded was $2.008, the EIA said.

OPEC ministers are to meet Wednesday in Iran. The cartel’s president said Monday that if oil remains high, OPEC will raise its output ceiling by 500,000 barrels daily in an effort to ease prices.

The organization’s official output ceiling is 27 million barrels and it’s already exceeding that by 700,000 barrels. The 500,000 barrel increase would be on top of that.