Local Gas Prices Continue To Rise March 3, 2000 WESTERN WASHINGTON - Gasoline prices in Washington and across the country are rising mercilessly, and experts warn we could be paying $2 a gallon this Spring.

The price of regular unleaded has climbed to around $1.60 at many Seattle area service stations, and the price of top grade gasoline is $ 1.89.

Hear more in this video clip from KOMO's Mark Miller. (Requires Quicktime player. Get it here.)

Gas prices can vary widely from city to city, even neighborhood to neighborhood, so you may find cheaper gas in some places but the trend is the same everywhere: prices have spiraled upward over the past several weeks.

Prices have risen dramatically, in fact, over the past year. Since March 1999, the price of regular unleaded has climbed from about $1.03 per gallon to $1.40 per gallon when last surveyed last month.

Service station owners say prices have increased five to six cents per gallon each week since early February.

The cause is an agreement among OPEC nations to reduce supplies to drive prices up. Their strategy worked, driving crude oil to just over $30 dollars a barrel.

OPEC ministers will meet in Vienna at the end of this month, and analysts expect oil-producing nations to agree to increase production. That will eventually bring prices down, but because it can take forty days for Gulf crude to reach the U.S., consumers probably won't see any price relief until mid May at the earliest.

http://www.komotv.com/

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 04, 2000