It's been a tough winter for ethanol.
It’s been a frigid winter in much of the country, but with the weather finally warming, motorists may now have something else to complain about – fuel prices rising along with the mercury.
With winter showing signs of easing its grip on parts of the nation, the average price for regular unleaded gasoline at U.S. pumps rose 4.74 cents over the past two weeks to $3.557 a gallon, the highest figure since Sept. 20, according to Lundberg Survey Inc.
The good news is that the average price of gasoline is still 15.02 cents below what it was a year ago at this time a year ago, according to the Lunderg survey, which has long tracked petroleum trends, and based its report on information obtained at more than 2,500 filling stations across the country.
Fuel prices can vary almost hourly, but the general upward trend is showing up in a variety of surveys. GasBuddy.com found that prices today are averaging an only slightly lower $3.510.
The recent increase in fuel prices might come as a surprise because oil and gasoline futures have been on a downward trend lately. But the price for ethanol, the government-mandated fuel additive, has been climbing, the Lundberg survey noted. Traditionally derived from corn, the cost for ethanol has jumped 24% this month as winter weather and a shortage of rail cars slowed the movement of the biofuel from plants in the Midwest.
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The highest prices in the country are being paid by motorists in Hawaii, and average $4.191 a gallon, according to GasBuddy, while South Carolina motorists are shelling out just $3.226, on average. But prices can vary widely from city to city.
The highest price for gasoline in the lower 48 U.S. states among the markets surveyed by Lundberg was in Los Angeles, at $4.003 a gallon. The lowest price was in Billings, Montana, where customers paid an average $3.18 a gallon, according to Lundberg, which noted regular gasoline averaged $3.73 a gallon on Long Island, New York.
Overall, the outlook for gasoline prices is relatively stable for the next several months, according to the U.S, Energy information Administration, or EIA. Fluctuations in the price of crude oil remain relatively small. The analysis, however, does not include any kind of estimate for the potential impact of the crisis in the Ukraine on global energy supplies and prices.
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Gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange have fallen 2.2% over the past two weeks, suggesting traders don’t expect the crisis to have much impact on American fuel prices. Inventories of crude oil climbed 5.85 million barrels, to 375.9 million last week.
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Meanwhile, a new report from the EIA noted that China has surpassed the U.S, to become the world’s largest importer of crude oil and products made from crude such as gasoline and diesel fuel.
(Paul A. Eisenstein contributed to this report.)