Expect gasoline prices to continue going up for another month. Local pump prices, which are already nearing the $2.25 range, should peak at about $2.35 per gallon in May, says the nation’s Energy Information Agency.
The agency released its “Summer 2005 Motor Gasoline Outlook” on Thursday.
The report says tight petroleum markets will keep motor fuel prices high from April through September.
The summer driving season’s average price for gasoline will be $2.28 per gallon, says the agency. That’s 38 cents more per gallon on average than motorists paid last summer.
It also means that the $2.35 per gallon peak the agency forecasts for May will slowly fall during the rest of the peak summer driving season.
West Coast prices, adds the agency, are expected to be substantially higher.
In inflation-adjusted dollars, the agency says the nation’s gasoline prices hit an all-time high in March 1981. In today’s dollars, a gallon of gas would have cost $3.12 then.
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