Gas Prices Surge in Last Week

The summer driving period is over, consumption is still low, but gasoline prices accelerated sharply in the last week, driven higher by rising crude oil prices.

The national average price of self-serve regular today is $2.792 a gallon, according to AAA. That's up nine cents in the last seven days and a sharp departure from recent price stability.

The price of diesel fuel is $3.064 a gallon, up from $2.975 a week ago.

Oil prices have been on the march recently, pushed higher in large part by the falling dollar. The U.S. currency took a hit last month after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed would continue its present monetary policy as long as the U.S. economy showed signs of weakness.

Also in the background, the group of Oil Price Exporting Countries (OPEC) is scheduled to meet on October 14th in Vienna, Austria, to discuss output and production levels, but is expected to maintain the status quo. OPEC has indicated it is not interested in higher prices, with one country's oil minister conceding that keeping crude in the $70-to-$80 range is "as close to perfect as possible."

"Despite the recent upward activity with crude oil, there is no real evidence to suggest that consumers will have any sustained impact from this at the pump," said Andrew Delmege, AAA's manager of regulatory affairs. Most analysts, without any further evidence to suggest otherwise, continue to view the remainder of 2010 as one that will be essentially static in terms of retail prices."

The states with the most expensive gasoline today are:

Alaska ($3.506)
Hawaii ($3.439)
California ($3.051)
Washington ($3.007)
Idaho ($2.963)
Oregon ($2.917)
Illinois ($2.912)
New York ($2.910)
Montana ($2.876)
Utah ($2.874)

The states with the least expensive gasoline today are:

South Carolina ($2.604)
New Jersey ($2.618)
Missouri ($2.630)
Texas ($2.643)
Tennessee ($2.659)
Mississippi ($2.651)
Virginia ($2.655)
Alabama ($2.659)
Louisiana ($2.668)
Georgia ($2.672)