Stash some cash for gas money this weekend

Hitting the route for Memorial Day weekend? Battalion an other bag. You might necessitate it to hale your gas money.

After breakage records almost day-to-day in recent weeks, gas terms countrywide are closing in on $4 a gallon, and experts state they are likely to maintain rising as record petroleum oil terms filter through to the pump.

National gasolene terms easily could attain $4.20 a gallon in coming years as Americans take to the roadstead in droves for Memorial Day weekend, said Kenneth Medlock III, a chap in energy surveys at Rice University's Baker Institute.

Even if the terms doesn't hit that mark, petroleum terms are likely to drive gasolene terms at least slightly higher than they are now.

And pump terms this vacation weekend could near what automobilists will see over the Fourth of July — historically the summer's terms peak, said Darin Newsom, a trade goods analyst with DTN in Omaha, Neb.

"While I don't cognize that we're quite as high as we're going to be this summer, we're getting awfully close," Newsom said.

Today, the national norm terms for regular unleaded was nearly $3.88 a gallon, up more than than 4.4 cents from Thursday and up 65 cents from a twelvemonth ago, according to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. It was the 16th twenty-four hours in a row terms hit a record.

In Houston, the norm terms for regular stood at $3.70, up 66 cents from this point last year, the study said.

It's that clip of yearIt's not unusual for gas terms to lift ahead of Memorial Day weekend as the summertime holiday season acquires under manner and refiners get passing along costs of more than expensive summertime gasolene blends.

But with terms above $3 a gallon and the economic system slowing, Americans have got not been pumping as much gas as they normally would this clip of year.

Last week, AAA said Americans program to drive less this Memorial Day weekend than they did the twelvemonth before. That hasn't happened since 2002, the motor baseball club said.

"Historically, when we've seen high gas prices, we didn't see people alteration their behavior," AAA Lone-Star State spokeswoman Rose Rougeau said.

This year, the leap in gas terms have more than to make with the recent crisp addition in petroleum oil terms than the typical seasonal factors, the Energy Department said.

Oil terms have got been pushed up by higher demand in the development world, the weaker dollar and concerns that investing in new production is not keeping gait with rising planetary energy needs.

Thursday, light, sweet petroleum broke $135 a gun barrel for the first clip before settling down $2.36 at $130.81 in trading on the New House Of York Mercantile Exchange.

A few old age ago, the cost of petroleum represented about one-half the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Today, it accounts for 70 percent, and the terms of oil have risen faster than U.S. refiners' ability to go through on the costs to consumers, said Toilet Felmy, main economic expert at the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's Pb trade group.

"What's going on right now is that the cost of manufacturing these merchandises have gone up, dramatically," Felmy said during a phone call this hebdomad with reporters.

Heading into June, the Energy Department said in a study this week, "we can anticipate gasolene terms to go on increasing if petroleum oil terms go on to climb."

$1.5 billion a dayToday, U.S. drivers are disbursement more than $1.5 billion a twenty-four hours on gasoline, almost ternary what they spent in 2002, oil analyst Uncle Tom Kloza said.

"It's horrible," said Wendy Buehrer, as she filled up her Hyundai Santa Iron at a Texaco station at Occident Gray and San Jacinto.

Buehrer, 34, have seen her gas disbursals soar, chiefly because of her day-to-day 45-minute commute from Katy to her occupation with an offshore boring company in sou'-west Houston.

Mark Cain, 50, a cabaret manager, said he's cut back on trips to see friends in Austin. He said his Toyota Corolla and short thrust to work have got helped maintain his gas costs in check, but he's paying more than attending to his gas gauge, he said.

Meanwhile, Amy Sanghavi, a pupil at South Lone-Star State College of Law, said she is about to do a large life change.

Next week, she will park her Toyota Camry and start taking the visible light railing to school each day. The move, she figures, will salvage her up to $30 a week.