Marathon Pundit: Build Keystone XL now: Gas prices reach five month high

Morton Grove last week

As the brutal winter of 2013-14 winds down--consumers are receiving a final gut punch. Gasoline prices are at their highest winter since autumn.

From Bloomberg:

The highest price for motor fuel in the lower 48 U.S. states among the markets surveyed was in Los Angeles, at $3.94 a gallon, Lundberg said. The lowest price was in Jackson, Miss., where customers paid an average $3.18 a gallon. Regular gasoline averaged $3.71 a gallon on Long Island, N.Y., compared with $3.63 in the report period ended Feb. 21. In Illinois, prices jumped 11 cents to $3.71 a gallon.

Diesel prices are hovering at the $4.00 mark.

Gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 14.05 cents, or 5 percent, to $2.9738 a gallon in the two weeks to Friday, March 7. During the same period, West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 38 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $102.58 a barrel on the Nymex.

Inventories of gasoline across the U.S. tumbled 1.6 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 28 to 229 million, the lowest level since Jan. 3, the Energy Information Administration reported Feb. 20. Stockpiles declined as refineries including Irving Oil's Saint John, New Brunswick, site and Phillips 66's Bayway, N.J., plant carried out maintenance.

Meanwhile, our anti-energy president continues to dither in regards to approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which will bring millions of barrels of oil from our friends in Canada.

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