Gas roars higher, pressuring holiday travelers

NEW YORK – As consumers began hitting the road Friday for the Memorial Day weekend, they faced the sobering reality that it now costs $87 to fill a Ford Explorer SUV, up $14 from last year, and $72 to fill a mid-sized Honda Accord, up $12.

That’s because gas prices, which took another jump higher overnight, are up nearly 20 percent, or 65 cents a gallon, over the past year to average nearly $3.88 a gallon nationally. But unlike this time last year, when gas prices were at their peak for 2007, pump prices now show no signs of halting their daily assault on the record books.


“Four dollars (a gallon) is a done deal now,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Ill. “We could go significantly above that.”

On average, drivers in Alaska, Connecticut, California, New York and Illinois are already paying more than $4 for gas, and an increasing number of stations around the country are posting prices higher than $4. In Alaska, where the average price of regular gas stood at a national high of $4.181 Friday, it now costs $94 to fill an Explorer, and $77 to fill an Accord.

Nationally, the price of a gallon of regular gas rose 4.4 cents overnight to a record average of $3.875, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices are headed even higher in coming days because of oil’s dramatic rally this week to a new record over $135 a barrel.

“We’re going to see some more significant increases here in light of what we’ve seen in the last few days,” said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.

AP