Gas prices across the US may rise up to $5 this summer, with average prices for the winter months already at record highs, the New York Times reported.
Gas prices are averaging $4.32 in California and $3.73 a gallon nationally, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. But as tensions with Iran and Syria continue and demand from countries like China rises, the price of gasoline has remained high. With summer approaching, prices are expected to go up around another 20 cents a gallon, the Times reported.
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“You may indeed have to pay $5 a gallon if you buy your summer gasoline on a tropical island, Martha’s Vineyard, or one of the tonier suburbs of New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles,” Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, said in a recent blog, the Press of Atlantic City reported.
Gasoline is already topping $4 a gallon in several states including California, Alaska and Hawaii, CNN reported, and prices have reached $5 on Long Island, CBS New York reported. Some experts have speculated that some cities could see gasoline top $6 a gallon, according to CNN.
“If we get some kind of explosion — like an Israeli attack or some local Iranian revolutionary guard decides to take matters in his own hands and attacks a tanker — than we’d see oil prices push up 20 to 25 percent higher and another 50 cents a gallon at the pump,” said Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, told the Times.
In the 1970s, the Nixon and Ford administrations imposed price controls on gasoline due to rising gas prices caused by OPEC’s cuts in production, CNN reported. As a result, consumers rationed gas, creating long lines at gas stations and an artificial shortage of gasoline.
