The spring honeymoon with gasoline prices is apparently over. Just one month ago, Hampton Roads prices were running below year-earlier levels, but now costs have jumped by more than 20 cents a gallon. While analysts have predicted that prices will not top out as high this summer as last, that's small consolation to heavy fuel users who are seeing the increased expense cut straight to their bottom line.
Some spot prices are even higher.
That's about 19 cents more than a month ago and 13 cents above April 2000. But analysts said that a few factors are colliding this spring, creating a supply crunch and driving up costs more radically than usual. Fuel demand has been escalating by about 3 percent a year with the strong national economy, despite the recent slowdown, and the continued popularity of sport-utility vehicles and other thirsty transportation. Gasoline demand in the United States rose 1.6 percent in the first quarter versus the same period in 2000, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Meanwhile, gasoline inventories are off by about 5 percent from a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, to the lowest springtime levels since the government began keeping track in 1963.