LI gas prices creep up another 2.4 cents

Gasoline prices crept up by another 2.4 cents on Long Island in the past week. But harsh winter weather cut demand nationwide as refinery output increased, which helped to lessen the price rise.

However, the cold, wind and snow have forced oil burners to work overtime.

Home heating oil rose by another three cents in the week ended Monday, to $3.542 a gallon at full-service dealers, according to a survey by the state Energy Research and Development Authority. That's the highest since October 2008. The average price for the fuel that most Long Islanders use to heat their homes has risen by 56.3 cents a gallon since its low in mid-August in the state survey.

At least one expert says there's more to come because of high demand for the fuel here and in Europe.

"Heating oil is likely to continue to go up through the end of this month," said Andy Lipow, president of Houston consulting company Lipow Oil Associates Llc. "I'm not expecting large-scale increases, but it may still go up another nickel."

Temperatures are likely to average below normal for the next two weeks, said forecaster Dan Leonard of WSI Corp., the Massachusetts-based sister company of The Weather Channel. "But," he said, "there will be a couple of mild days in the middle of next week."

Lipow thinks gasoline prices will be stable and might even drop a bit in coming weeks, but he and other experts still expect an increase as the weather improves.

Regular gasoline averaged $3.369 a gallon in Nassau and Suffolk Wednesday, AAA said, based on a survey of credit card transactions at 100,000 stations nationally - up by almost nine cents from a month earlier and up almost 42 cents from a year ago. Gas prices have been rising locally since their low of $2.829 a gallon on Sept. 7.

The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday that gasoline stocks rose more than had been expected by analysts surveyed earlier by Bloomberg News. Average demand for gasoline over the past four weeks fell by about half a percent, the department said. Lipow says refineries are producing more gasoline as a sort of byproduct of the additional heating oil and diesel they are producing in response to high demand.

Prices for crude oil are about 10 percent higher than a year ago, settling at almost $92 a barrel Wednesday, and some analysts think it will reach as high as $150 a barrel later this year, which Lipow says would translate in this region to gasoline at almost $5 a gallon. The Energy Department, however, forecast Tuesday that crude will average about $93 a barrel this year.