Syracuse, NY – The average price of a gallon of gas appears poised to cross the $3 mark in Central New York. The mean in the Syracuse area stood at $2.999 this morning, up 2.5 cents from Thursday, the SyracuseGasPrices.com Web site reported. Prices ranged widely, from $2.88 a gallon at a Kwik Fill station in Skaneateles to $3.09 at...
Syracuse, NY – The average price of a gallon of gas appears poised to cross the $3 mark in Central New York.
The mean in the Syracuse area stood at $2.999 this morning, up 2.5 cents from Thursday, the SyracuseGasPrices.com Web site reported.
Prices ranged widely, from $2.88 a gallon at a Kwik Fill station in Skaneateles to $3.09 at a Mobil station, also in Skaneateles. Syracuse.com has a map of stations with the lowest prices.
The AAA motor club’s Fuel Gauge Report gave an average this morning at a slightly more modest $2.98 a gallon, up eight-tenths of a cent from Thursday and a little more than a penny higher than last Friday.
The statewide average is $3.019, according to AAA.
Several factors are combining to pump up gas prices, said Patrick DeHaan, SyracuseGasPrices’ senior petroleum analyst.
Action by the Federal Reserve to inject money into the economy weakened the dollar against other currencies, DeHaan said.
“Each time we weaken the dollar it sends oil higher,” he said.
Also, fuel stockpiles are shrinking as refiners come out of their plant maintenance seasons more slowly than usual, further boosting prices, he said.
The run-up is likely to continue, DeHaan said.
Oil, which not long ago was trading between $70 and $80 a barrel, now is up around $87 a barrel, he said. It takes about a week for retail gas prices to catch up with increases in oil prices, so area motorists could feel more pain at the pump next week, he said.
Oil prices could rise further today if the markets take today’s unemployment report as a sign of an improving economy, DeHaan said. Traders usually expect such improvement will boost future demand for fuel, he said.