Gas prices continued an upward climb, settling at an average price of $3.59 a gallon, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced today.
In some places, consumers are already seeing gas prices over $4. Today's weekly gas price average was up 40 cents from a year ago, and up by seven cents from last week.
"I'm expecting the national average to float dangerously close to $4 a gallon," Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy.com's senior petroleum analyst, told ABC News. DeHaan said that following last week's average price per gallon of $3.53, gas prices are very close to "that psychological $4 mark."
"We are on course to break through $4 nationally," he said. "Some of these major metro areas could hit $4.50 or even higher. This year we may have a run for the money in knocking down the record from 2008."
The peak national average retail price of regular grade gasoline hit $4.114 per gallon on July 7, 2008, according to the EIA.
In 2011, the real annual average for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.56, which was up more than a $1.00 from the 2010 average of $2.90, according to the EIA. The EIA, which has compiled data since 1919, has the previous record high as $3.45 for 1981.
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