US gas prices rise on strike, refinery outage: Lundberg survey

[NEW YORK] The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose 13 cents in the past two weeks, bringing it up 26 cents since prices bottomed out after a nine-month slide ended in January, according to the Lundberg survey released on Sunday.

Regular grade gasoline rose to an average price of US$2.33 per gallon, according to the biweekly survey dated Feb 20, up from the previous survey on Feb. 6.

Gasoline is down US$1.08 a gallon from the same year-ago period, and there is no shortage of gasoline, said survey publisher Trilby Lundberg in Camarillo, California.

"It was dropping dramatically for nine months straight and then it hit bottom, and now it's up 26 cents since then, the latest being 13 cents the past two weeks," Lundberg said.

The highest-priced gasoline in the survey area of the 48 contiguous US states was in Los Angeles at US$2.91 per gallon. The lowest price was in Salt Lake City at US$1.91 per gallon.

A steelworkers' strike and a refinery explosion on Wednesday at an Exxon Mobil Corp plant in Torrance, California, helped push gasoline prices higher, Lundberg said.

The largest US refinery strike in 35 years entered its fourth week as workers at 12 refineries accounting for one-fifth of US production capacity walked picket lines on Sunday, union officials said.

The explosion halted production at the Exxon Mobil refinery, a plant manager said on Friday, raising the possibility of higher fuel prices in parts of Southern California.

REUTERS