Susquehanna Valley gas prices increased two cents this week to $3.469 per gallon.
National
Today's national average price for regular unleaded gasoline is $3.61 per gallon. This is 2 cents less expensive than one week ago and 4 cents less than one month ago, but it is 10 cents more than the same date last year.
Last week's national average moved higher because of sharp increases in retail prices for a handful of Great Lakes states. The near record-high prices in these states were because of continued low supplies and transportation challenges for wholesale gasoline in the Chicago market, particularly due to maintenance at the ExxonMobil refinery in Joliet, Ill., and the BP refinery in Whiting, Ind. Those same states have seen prices reverse course over the last week.
National gasoline markets in recent months have been driven by regional supply and production issues rather than by the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, which has traded in a narrow $5 range. At the same time regional gasoline production and distribution concerns have eased and retail prices have inched lower, market-watchers have turned a wary eye to escalating geopolitical tensions in Syria. While Syria is not a major oil producing nation, there is the risk that fighting might spread to other countries in the region, and this has kept some upward pressure on crude oil prices. At the close of formal trading on the NYMEX last Friday, these tensions drove WTI to settle at $97.85 per barrel which was the highest mark since January. At the close of Monday's formal trading, WTI settled down 8 cents at $97.77 per barrel.
(AAA East Central is a not-for-profit association with 82 local offices in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, New York and Kentucky servicing 2.7 million members.)