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Gas, Oil Prices Again Reach New Records

Posted on: Friday, 12 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 13--Crude oil and gasoline prices rose to new records again Friday amid worries that refinery outages might leave supplies inadequate for the rest of the summer driving season.

Gasoline pump prices are going up in part also in delayed reaction to earlier increases in crude prices.

Crude oil for September delivery rose $1.06 to $66.86 a barrel in New York. The futures touched $67.10 a barrel during the session, the highest since the contract was introduced in 1983.

Meanwhile, the national average price for regular grade gasoline rose 1.6 cents Friday to a record $2.413 a gallon, the AAA said, 30 percent higher than a year earlier.

The motorist group said regular unleaded averaged $2.554 a gallon Friday in Nassau and Suffolk counties and $2.626 a gallon in the city, both records.

Gasoline prices often rise seasonally in the weeks leading up to the long Labor Day weekend, the official end of the summer driving season, and typically recede somewhat afterward.

Demand for gasoline continues to run ahead of last year despite the higher prices, but an Associated Press/AOL poll released Friday said 64 percent of Americans predict that increases in gasoline prices will cause them financial hardship over the next six months.

The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii conducted Aug. 9-11 by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

And the University of Michigan said U.S. consumer confidence fell in August from July -- the highest level of the year. While an improved job market and income gains have helped Americans cope with the higher prices, economists said the higher fuel prices may be starting to take a toll.

"There's a tug-of-war going on right now between rising oil prices and the improving labor market," Anthony Chan, a senior economist at JPMorgan Asset Management in Columbus, Ohio, told Bloomberg News.

A drop in confidence "suggests consumers are weighting oil prices more heavily," he said.

This story was supplemented with wire service reports.

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Source: Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

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