The bad news is that average prices for gasoline shot up over the last week by almost 15 cents per gallon in Texas and nationally.
Senior Petroleum Analyst Patrick DeHaan works for GasBuddy -- an application and website that allows users to post gas prices -- and said the steep hike in wholesale gas prices may also have been spawned by higher oil prices, but he believes the increase could also be related to a general uptick in the economy.
"It's a bit of an early run, if you will. I think there's some positive sentiment that is spilling over from the Dow Jones and the S&P hitting multi-year records. That's probably putting some influence or upward pressure on commodities as well," said DeHaan.
So the good news is that the stock market is doing well, but back to the bad news. DeHaan said the price increase hit early this year, and now we’re stuck with the higher prices for a while as refinery maintenance season begins.
"It's shocking to see anywhere across the country," said DeHaan. "This is happening so early in the year. It's likely one of the biggest, fastest increases so early in the year that we've seen."
The average price for gas in San Antonio was $3.35 Monday, and about $3.49 nationally.
