LOS ANGELES (2UrbanGirls) – The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County rose for the eighth consecutive day Saturday after decreasing 78 of the previous 80 days, increasing 1.6 cents to $5.368.
The average price has increased 12.2 cents over the past eight days, including 1 cent Friday, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. It is 10.4 cents more than one week ago, 6.1 cents less than one month ago, and 96.4 cents more than one year ago.
The average price is $1.094 less than the record high of $6.462 set June 14.
The Orange County average price rose for the ninth consecutive day after dropping nine of the previous 10 days to its lowest amount since March 4, increasing 2.4 cents to $5.332. It has increased 16.4 cents over the past nine days, including 1.8 cents Friday.
The Orange County average price is 13.9 cents more than one week ago, 2.8 cents more than one month ago, and 96.9 cents more than one year ago. It has dropped $1.078 since rising to a record $6.41 on June 12.
“This week’s record-high temperatures greatly increased the probability of refinery power blackouts in the state, which can take refineries offline for days or even weeks after the outages,” said Doug Shupe, the Automobile Club of Southern California’s corporate communications and programs manager.
“Although no outages have been reported so far, sellers with extra supplies of gasoline have raised their prices and imported gasoline on cargo ships is not being delivered right now in anticipation of future need, which drove up Los Angeles wholesale gasoline prices sharply in the last week. In addition, there are some regional refinery issues that have reduced gasoline production and inventories.”
The national average price dropped for the 88th consecutive day since rising to a record, falling 1.4 cents to $3.724. It has dropped $1.292 since rising to a record $5.016 on June 14.
The national average price is 7.2 cents less than one week ago and 28.6 cents less than one month ago, but 54.5 cents more than one year ago.
