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Jan 5, 2009 7:35 pm US/Eastern
Gas Prices Soar in New Year
Consumers Are Paying More At The Pump For The New Year
CBS4 Interviewed A Local Gas Station Owner
Drivers Had Recently Experienced A Decrease In Price
PLANTATION (CBS4) ―
Here's something we haven't seen in 6 months: Gas prices going up. Every day since we rang in the new year, gas prices have been going up.
Officially, the average price of gas is up five cents in Florida, but over the weekend, many stations here in South Florida raised their prices more than ten cents a gallon.
"The price finally bottomed out and we started getting some increases in gas prices, " said John Rudolph. He owns several gas stations here.
Rudolph says fighting between in Gaza is making investors nervous that there could be disruptions in gas delivery. The OPEC production cuts are also being blamed in increased prices. A barrel of oil has soared more than $15 since last month.
But Rudolph thinks the hike is only temporary.
"We're kind of in a catch up mode right now. It started 3 or 4 days ago, and I think here in the next few days we're going to see a lot more stations move up," he said.
Another sign that prices are going up is at Port Everglades, where much of Florida's fuel is shipped in and stored. The cost of gasoline sold to independent dealers is up to $1.70 a gallon. That's a 27 cent increase in five days.
Some in the industry blame greedy speculators for driving up prices. Whoever is to blame, drivers certainly have noticed. "It's going back up again," said Pete Olsen as he filled his car. He, like many, worry that prices could soar again to more than $4 a gallon, like we saw last summer.
Rudolph says he thinks that's unlikely. "Initially it might cause the prices to spike up a little bit, I think they're going to level off and come down a little bit more even. "
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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