California gasoline prices approach record highs

LOS ANGELES
April 6, 2007 5:46am

Gasoline prices continued rising by almost a penny a day across most of California over the past week and are now within 15 cents of the all-time record prices set last May, according to figures compiled for the American Automobile Association.

Compared to last year at this time, prices are about 40 cents higher.

But the pace of the increase has cooled a bit to less than a penny a day.

"California still has by far the highest gas prices in the country, but other states' prices rose even more rapidly than California over the last week, and Nevada has just become the second state with a gas price average over $3 a gallon," says Carol Thorp, a spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California.

"Crude oil prices have come down in the last week, but recent international incidents in the Middle East have added another layer of volatility to the market," Ms. Thorp notes.

The price spread between what are apparently the highest prices and lowest price for a gallon of gas in this country is $1.50 on Friday.

Here are Central Valley market averages on April 6, as reported by the American Automobile Association with last week’s (March 30) averages in parentheses and March 23 prices in brackets:

• Bakersfield, $3.283 ($3.230) [$3.184]

• Visalia-Porterville, $3.267 ($3.203) [$3.157]

• Fresno, $3.256 ($3.221) [$3.165]

• Merced, $3.282 ($3.226) [$3.192]

• Modesto, $3.242 ($3.190) [$3.142]

• Stockton-Lodi, $3.243 ($3.210) [$3.149]

• Sacramento, $3.229 ($3.192) [$3.132]

• Yolo, $3.218 ($3.190) [$3.128]

• Chico, $3.238 ($3.169) [$3.118]

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.260, which is 5.5 cents higher than last week. In San Diego, the price is $3.291, which is 6.6 cents above last week's price.

The highest market average in the state again this week is in San Francisco at $3.399, which is a mere 3.6 cents above the week-ago price. San Francisco price increases had been zipping along at more than a penny a day.

Yolo, at $3.218, has the state’s lowest market average price, according to the AAA.

But unlike last week when at least two gasoline stations in the entirety of California would sell a gallon of gasoline for less than a three-dollar bill, the lowest price that can be found today is $3.05 per gallon at an Arco station in Roseville, according to the Web site GasBuddy.com.

The nation’s highest price found by GasBuddy’s spotters on Friday is $3.79 at a Chevron station in Lee Vining.

Perhaps the lowest price in the nation is found in Amarillo, Texas, at $2.29 per gallon, says GasBuddy.

GasBuddy bases its figures on reports from volunteer “price spotters” reporting specific locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The AAA’s prices are market averages for self-serve regular grade (87 octane) gasoline. They are calculated from credit card purchases.

Not every station is surveyed and not every market is included in either report. Both price services note that there can be wide variations within markets.