Rising gasoline prices are giving pizza-delivery guy Chris Wirgler a whole new reason for optimism.

As his ’87 Chrysler LeBaron slurped up regular unleaded at the BP station near Ninth and Iowa streets, he cringed about the 10-cents-per-gallon price increase that had arrived overnight — and left him fretting about the prospects for another 250-mile shift ahead of him.

“This is insane,” Wirgler said. “When the prices go up like this, it’s just taking your money.

“I just hope the tips are good tonight.”

Wirgler could be holding out hope for awhile.

With the petroleum industry pumping barely enough fuel to keep the world’s economic engine humming, a buying frenzy on oil markets is setting the stage for sharply higher gasoline prices in the United States.

Finding any station in America willing to sell gasoline for less than $2 a gallon will become an increasingly difficult proposition, industry analysts said. In Lawrence, many stations pumped up their regular unleaded prices by a dime to $1.99 overnight Thursday.

Leah Magie thought about filling up the day before, at $1.89 a gallon, but held off thinking that the prices might actually go down.

Wrong call.

Chris Wirgler, who delivers for Domino's Pizza in Lawrence, tops off the tank of his Chrysler LeBaron at BP, 914 Iowa. He filled up Friday as he prepared for his shift that night, and the potential for 250 miles on the road. Rising prices are cutting into his compensation. Domino's drivers get an hourly wage plus 80 cents per delivery and tips, but no reimbursement for mileage.

“At least I don’t have an SUV,” she said, climbing back into her Mitsubishi Eclipse after filling up.

Fueling the increases: Gasoline prices on futures markets have soared 20 percent in the past week alone. The average retail price of gasoline already was $1.93 per gallon last week, an increase of 21 cents from a year ago, according to the Energy Department.

“I have already heard from gasoline retailers that new shipments are costing them a dime more (per gallon),” said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc., of New Canaan, Conn., a provider of petroleum market analysis. “By next week prices will be 10 to 15 cents higher at the pump in many places.

“I believe oil prices and the economy are on a collision course and that it’s only a matter of time.”

Marcus Kater isn’t worried — at least not yet.

The Kansas University senior pumped 10.19 gallons into his Chevy Blazer and didn’t break a sweat, putting the $20.37 bill on plastic.

And the bill goes back home to Wichita.

“Honestly, my parents still pay for my gas,” Kater said. “It might make a difference for them, but it’s a little easier for me — until May, anyway.”

Analysts don’t expect the price pressures to let up anytime soon.

Crude oil futures — a base component of gasoline markets — traded above $53 a barrel Friday, and analysts said the global supply tightness was likely to persist through 2005 because of an economic expansion that so far appears only moderately slower than the year before.

But the cycle of rising incomes to offset ever-higher energy prices won’t last forever, analysts said.

“Those people who think we’ve entered a new paradigm where high oil prices don’t affect economic growth are wrong,” said Lawrence Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York.

On the Street: Will rising gas prices give people an incentive to use public transportation? State may try to tap into oil producers’ profits (11-01-04)

What’s happening today, Goldstein said, is that the blistering pace of economic growth in China, and to a lesser degree the United States, is overshadowing the financial drag that typically would be more prominent when energy prices soar.

“Right now we’re riding a wonderful cycle,” he said.

Indeed, reports released this week showed that most of the big retail chains posted strong sales gains in February, work force productivity is rising, manufacturing is expanding and the U.S. economy added a better-than-expected 262,000 jobs last month.

Such business benefits don’t always help the little guy, said Tony Tramp, a KU freshman working toward a degree in business administration. He’s watched the news, read the papers and tried to comprehend the factors that add up to making him pour more money into the tank of his Eclipse.

“It just totally sucks,” he said, after parting with $2.19 a gallon for premium unleaded. “With the extremely high demand, they (petroleum companies) can control the price pretty easily.”

Analysts say that the rising gasoline prices would put the greatest financial squeeze on low- and fixed-income families, who spend about three times as much of their wealth on energy as do middle-income families.

Kathy Wainscott, a cashier at BP, 914 Iowa, sees the crunch every day.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “When it gets to $2.20 a gallon to get gas — when you’ve got kids and you’re running them to the doctor and to school — it just gets crazy.”

Talk about crazy: Willie McCoy thought he’d hit the jackpot Friday afternoon, pulling up to the diesel pump at Citgo, at Ninth and Iowa streets.

The listed price: $1.93, well below the $2.18 he’d seen elsewhere in town.

“I stopped here for a reason,” said McCoy, who lives in Eudora and puts plenty of miles on his Dodge Ram 250 pickup. “It’s cheaper on diesel than anywhere else I’ve seen.

“Now I can see why.”

A sign on the cashier’s cage said it all: “Sorry. OUT OF GAS.”

— The Associated Press contributed information to this story.