BURBANK — Gas prices hit an all-time high Tuesday, up nearly 50 cents from prices tallied a month ago.
The average price of regular unleaded gasoline in the Los Angeles area was $3.56 Tuesday afternoon, coming on the heels of a four- to five-cent jump during the weekend and a steady climb that ran through the month of February, said Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the automobile club.
“It’s been heading up for the last week or so, breaking records every time,” he said.
Prices of crude oil are also on the rise, with commodities investors trading near $109 per barrel Tuesday, also an all-time high, he added.
Since crude oil represents one of the largest costs of producing gasoline, spikes in crude oil prices eventually show up as spikes at the pump, he added.
The most recent jump in crude oil prices can be attributed, in part, to larger than anticipated draw on inventories, which investors did not expect, Spring said.
“That had an impact,” he said. “Anything in the commodities world or the trading world that comes as a surprise will have an impact; we don’t like to be surprised.”
And with inflation driving down the value of the dollar, investors are looking for different places to put their money, where it will either hold or increase its value, he said.
“Really, the price is being driven by people who have no interest in producing this stuff as a product,” Spring said. “It’s strictly financial — pure and simple.”
At a gas station on Glenoaks Boulevard in Burbank, where prices were $3.49 for regular unleaded and $3.69 for premium unleaded gas, some drivers were making proactive decisions to cope with skyrocketing prices.
“I have a 1988 Land Cruiser and I pretty much park that in the driveway now,” Burbank resident Haney Eskander, 30, said.
Eskander purchased a Toyota Scion, which is more fuel efficient than the Land Cruiser, and has cut between $150 and $175 from his monthly gas expenditures, he said.
“What I’m saving on gas is pretty much paying for this guy,” he said, referring to the Scion.
Temecula resident Rick Barker, 49, a salesman for an Ohio-based company, said high gas prices are making it difficult for his company to keep up on the West Coast.
“Our dollars don’t go as far out here as they do in the Midwest,” he said. “For me driving around all over Southern California, it takes a big chunk.”
