Gas prices starting to rise

The price of gasoline right now might be about as low as it gets.

Gas prices are starting to edge higher, said Tom Kloza, the global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, New Jersey.

“Right now you could still find gasoline for about $1.35 or so, $1.40,” he said.

In the Philadelphia area, drivers are paying an average of $1.90, while motorists in Wilmington, Delaware, are filling up at about $1.70 a gallon. 

Refinery maintenance and the shift to warm-weather blends will cause prices to rise, but Kloza said they might not reach their highs of the year until late summer.

“Instead of typically taking place in March and April when we usually see most of the increases, it’s going to take a while for the oil market to clean up,” he said. “There’s a lot of gasoline out there. There’s a lot of crude oil … that’s going to be turned into gasoline.”

Refineries have also been producing plenty of diesel fuel, and Kloza said the price of diesel should soon be lower than gasoline.

“And that will be the norm for maybe the second quarter and the third quarter,” he said. “Every refinery in the world has concentrated on making more diesel and we’re also not using as much to move things around the country.”