Essex Gas Prices Bounce Upward: How High Will They Go?

By Deb Belt (Patch Staff)

»»Use our Mapquest gas tool below to find the best price in town. If the map is not local, type your ZIP code or town and state in the search box and press return.

After a winter freefall in gasoline prices, prices at the pump have climbed nationwide for the past two weeks, and experts say that will continue into the summer driving season.

The national average for regular gas was $2.17 Monday, up from $2.06 a week ago, but significantly less than the $3.28 per gallon average price drivers paid one year ago.

Prices on Monday ranged from $2.02 per gallon of regular gas in New Jersey to $2.42 in New York, according to AAA. Always pricey California gasoline averaged $2.63 Monday, and Illinois’ statewide average was in the middle of the pack at $2.30.

Home heating oil and propane prices are so far holding steady, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The residential price for propane was $2.37 a gallon Monday, which is where it’s hovered since October.

The price of heating oil ticked up 7 cents a gallon last week from mid-January prices, with customers paying $2.80 a gallon.

Even with seasonal increases, AAA doesn’t expect gas prices to rise above $3 a gallon in 2015, Delisa says, unless geopolitical events like last year’s crisis in Russia/Ukraine make the market nervous. “We anticipate that oil is not going to increase that substantially barring any events that could disrupt the global oil supply,” she said.

Christine Delise, spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, told Patch this is the second-consecutive week that gas prices have risen, prompted by a slight increase in crude oil to around $50 a barrel. That’s still half the cost of crude prices compared with a year ago.

“Oil prices may have bottomed, in the past week we’ve seen the commodity close at over $50 a barrel,” Delise said.

Gasoline prices typically increase in February, she said, and continue to climb into the summer as refineries shut down for maintenance as they prepare their equipment to produce summer blend gasoline.

• Find the latest prices in your area on AAA Fuel Finder
• Download AAA’s free mobile app – open to everyone – to find closest gas station and prices
• Use AAA’s Fuel Cost Calculator to chart your gas prices along your route

»Patch file photo