Prices expected to surge in spring

Washington — Gasoline prices rose more than 7 percent in January, which typically is one of the slowest driving months of the year. That’s leading experts to predict pump prices may surge past last year’s record highs when highway travel picks up late in the spring.

Government figures show that the average price of regular unleaded has risen in each of the last four weeks, jumping from $1.78 at the start of the year to $1.91 a gallon in the week ended Jan. 31. That’s more than 30 cents a gallon higher than a year earlier.

Prices are highest on the West Coast, averaging $1.99 a gallon, and lowest in the Rocky Mountain region, averaging $1.83 a gallon.

Last year, the average price peaked above $2 a gallon in May, just before Memorial Day, which is the unofficial start of the summer driving season. To be just a dime short of that level in early February is not good news for motorists, analysts said.

Over the past four weeks, nationwide demand for gasoline is up more than 1 percent at 8.8 million barrels, according to the latest U.S. government data.

A survey released on Sunday by the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations across the country showed an average price of $1.91 nationwide for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel.

Earnings

Citgo evaluating business strategy

The executive appointed to head Citgo Petroleum Corp. said Saturday that officials planned to review the company’s operations to optimize earnings.

Felix Rodriguez, designated the next president of Citgo, said there was no current plan to sell off assets, but rather the company would uphold commitments to clients and employees while studying ways to improve earnings.

Citgo, a U.S.-based unit of Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., supplies 8 percent to 10 percent of gasoline consumed in the United States and has about 4,000 employees, Rodriguez said.

He said eventually the review “could include the sale of some assets” but that “we will keep the commitments we have made” to both clients and employees.

He said the costs of complying with environmental regulations in the United States were escalating and that Citgo was interested in searching for ways to share costs with other firms.

Citgo owns eight refineries in U.S. territory.