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By Richard Valdmanis
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The national average
price for retail regular gasoline hit a record $1.77 a gallon, the AAA
auto club said on Tuesday, with little relief in sight for the nation's
200 million drivers.
"The fact that the summer driving season hasn't even started and
OPEC (news - web sites) is implementing a new output cut means things
are likely to get worse at the pumps before they get better," said
Mantill Williams, national spokesman for AAA, formerly the American
Automobile Association.
High gasoline prices, threatening to hobble a U.S. economic recovery,
have been blamed on surging costs for crude oil and tough new U.S. environmental
fuel regulations.
Adding trouble for price-weary motorists, oil cartel OPEC decided last
week to implement a cut of 1 million barrels per day in oil supplies
to counter an expected decline in global demand this spring.
OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia has defended the cartel's output cut, blaming
high U.S. pump prices on a lack of new refining capacity in the world's
largest energy consumer and not on any shortfall in oil supplies.
A growing number of Americans have shown their displeasure over red
hot gasoline prices by pumping without paying, according to the Petroleum
Marketers Association of America.
The new record brings gasoline prices about 5 cents a gallon higher
than a month ago and more than 13 cents higher than a year ago, according
to the AAA's survey of more than 60,000 filling stations.
Pump prices have been climbing steadily since late March, when they
first surpassed an all-time record struck late last summer at just below
$1.75 a gallon.
While an all-time high in nominal terms, the current price of gasoline
is still significantly lower than the inflation-adjusted peak of $3
a gallon hit in 1981, and well below the prices seen regularly in European
countries
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