If you drove past the gas station last night without filling up, you may have some regret this morning as gas prices jumped up to $3.49 overnight in Tulsa.
That's an 11-cent increase from the day before.
Marketwatch blames a series of refinery and pipeline issues affected the gasoline market including the HollyFrontier fire in Tulsa last week.
Analysts say a fire at one of the country's biggest oil refineries will contribute to higher prices at the pump on the West Coast.
<i>A series of refinery and pipeline issues affected the gasoline market last week. The Illinois refinery of Petroleos de Venezuela SA's Citgo unit and BP PLC's, Whiting, Indiana, refinery experienced shutdowns last week. HollyFrontier Corp. shut down a diesel hydrotreater at its refinery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after a fire.</i>
The national average of gas prices has increased for five straight weeks.
The fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, about 10 miles northeast of San Francisco, broke out Monday evening.
It sent plumes of black smoke over the San Francisco Bay area and sent scores of people to hospitals with breathing problems before it was out the following morning.
Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, says Chevron's refinery is big and important to the market.
With inventories of gasoline in the region already low compared with the rest of the country, Kloza says pump prices in California and elsewhere on the West Coast will soon average more than $4 per gallon.