Nevada gasoline prices jump again

Thursday, March 13, 2003 | 10:59 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

Gasoline prices in Nevada soared 17 percent in the past month, boosting the statewide average to $1.97 a gallon and making the state the third highest in the nation for gas costs, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Automobile Association of America.

Nevada is third behind California and Hawaii.

Nationally, gas prices have jumped 9 cents in the past month to an average of $1.70 per gallon, the survey said.

"Drivers are getting hit with sticker shock at the gas pump," said Sean Comey, a spokesman for AAA Nevada. "These are some of the highest prices ever recorded by AAA."

Prices for gasoline and other petroleum products are near all-time highs in the United States because of the rise in global crude-oil prices, not because of "price gouging," the U.S. Energy Department said.

"There is no evidence of price gouging at any level," the department's Energy Information Administration said in its This Week in Petroleum newsletter. Profit margins for refiners and distributors "are not unusually high."

Two in three Americans said the recent rise in gasoline prices was not justified by current market conditions, according to a Gallup poll released last month. "The consumer strongly blames the oil companies, not market conditions," Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup poll, said in an interview.

"What consumers seem to expect is that no mater how much demand may exceed supply in the short run, prices should not rise to more than an 'acceptable' level," the Energy Department report said. Prices sometimes have to go higher for sellers to cover their costs or to create a disincentive that will rein in prices, the report said.

"Underlying supply and demand" explains recent price moves, according to the department. The benchmark price for crude oil in the U.S. has climbed 39 percent since November as a strike in Venezuela curtailed shipments from that country, which had been supplying about 10 percent of U.S. oil needs. The prospect of a U.S. invasion of Iraq has also boosted prices.

The price of regular unleaded gas in Las Vegas climbed 33 cents a gallon in the past month to $1.98, and Reno motorists reported a 26-cent-a-gallon increase to $1.97.

Other Western cities also reported substantial increases. Gas prices in Los Angeles jumped 36 cents a gallon in the past month to an average of $2.08. Phoenix reported one of the largest jumps at 37 cents a gallon to mark an average of $1.86.