Gas prices climbing - how high will they go?

If last week’s gas prices increases made you wince, don’t expect to be smiling anytime soon.

Retail gasoline prices continued to move upward Tuesday in Tacoma and nationwide in the wake of fire late last week at a Ferndale refinery, continuing tension in the Middle East and speculative buying in the oil market.

The average price of gasoline in Tacoma at mid-afternoon Tuesday was $3.717 a gallon, up about a cent from Monday. That price was 11 cents higher than a week ago and 21 cents greater than a month ago. Compared with this time last year, the gas price was some 36 cents a gallon higher.

Across the country, commentators noted that the national average gas price, $3.534 a gallon, was higher than it’s ever been on Feb. 21. In California, premium gasoline was already selling at some stations for more than $5 a gallon. Do those facts presage a big run up in gasoline

prices over the next few months? Analysts say it depends.

On one hand, demand for gas at least in the U.S. hasn’t escalated significantly and gasoline supplies are slightly more than normal. On the other hand, anxiety over oil

prices is high because of Iran’s cutoff of oil to Britain and France and the  civil unrest in Syria. And speculators, hoping for a return to the $140-a-barrel prices for oil the economy saw in the summer of 2008, are buying up oil at what they hope is a bargain price. That oil was selling for about $106 a barrel Tuesday.

In Washington, BP, operators of the Ferndale refinery hit by a fire late last week, are still assessing the damage from that blaze. The refinery, which supplies 20 percent of the state’s gasoline is still shut down. Four other Washington refineries could ramp up production to compensate, but all may pause production at different time this spring for maintenance and to convert to summer gas formulations.