Gasoline on LI closes in on $4 per gallon

Gasoline seems ready to top $4 a gallon on Long Island for the first time since mid-May.

Regular unleaded averaged $3.99 a gallon Wednesday, the AAA said, up 36 cents from its recent low in early July. Driving the spike are higher crude oil prices combined with tight supplies on the East Coast of less-polluting summer gasoline required by clean-air laws.

Some experts say motorists can expect further increases in the weeks to come.

"Prices, I think, are going to continue to rise," said Andy Lipow, president of Houston consulting company Lipow Oil Associates Llc. He notes new U.S. Department of Energy figures show East Coast summer gasoline supplies were down slightly again last week from the week before, at 15.3 million barrels, and down 11 percent from a year earlier.

Experts say they don't expect any relief at the pumps until mid-September -- if then. Normally, prices slip after Labor Day, the official end of the summer driving season, when demand usually falls and when less-expensive-to-produce winter-grade gasoline can be phased in. But rising crude oil prices could negate those effects, said editor Stephen Schork of the industry newsletter The Schork Report published out of Villanova, Pa.

"If we don't see any sort of correction in the weeks ahead, we're going to see very little relief [at gasoline pumps] by the end of September," he said.

Gasoline prices also have been climbing nationally -- Wednesday's average for regular was $3.709, said the AAA -- but problems at refineries and a pipeline have been blamed for much of that, along with higher crude prices.

Long Island prices had been declining since a recent peak of $4.169 April 10 to a recent low average for regular of $3.63 on July 2.

The tight supplies of summer gasoline in this region arose from the closures within the past year of three refineries that supply summer-blend "reformulated" gasoline to the region -- one in the Caribbean and two in Pennsylvania. One of the Pennsylvania refineries, in Trainer, has been purchased by Delta Air Lines and is to resume operations after renovations -- too late to affect gasoline supplies this summer.

Tensions between the West and Iran had caused oil prices to soar to almost $110 a barrel in February for the benchmark U.S. grade, but as those concerns eased and economic news worsened, crude oil fell to as low as $77.69 a barrel June 28. It settled Wednesday at $94.33 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.