Gasoline close to record high before Labor Day

Gasoline is near the highest it’s ever been for this time of year, just ahead of the Labor Day weekend. The run-up in oil prices this year, combined with a rash of refining problems throughout the U.S., has boosted pump prices. The national average today is $3.629 per gallon, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Drivers will pay more for gasoline this Labor Day than in any other year except 2008, when pump prices hit an average of $3.686. In Baton Rouge, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded is $3.498. Retail gasoline prices are rising in the U.S., even though motorists are buying less. Analysts say they have been pushed higher by a steady rise in international gasoline demand. Americans may be using less, but drivers in developing nations are using more. “It’s all part of being in a global market,” says Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. The U.S. is using so little gasoline now, he says, that it has been a net exporter of refined fuels to other countries for the past nine weeks. That’s typical for OPEC countries, but it’s extremely rare in the U.S. “You have to go back years and years,” Kloza says. “I haven’t found a time when we’ve been a net exporter for that many weeks.”