Gasoline prices shot up as much as 5 cents a gallon in a matter of hours Friday at many service stations in Salt Lake County, and industry officials expect further increases over the weekend.
One station attendant said he was told to jack up prices another 10 cents for Saturday.Gasoline marketers blame the sudden price jump on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, coupled with a gradual rise in crude-oil prices in the past month. Meanwhile, retailers point to panic buying of consumers.
"As demand on the product increases, the product runs out, and the price goes up," said Paul Ashton, executive director of the Utah Petroleum Retailers Association. "As long as people top their tanks off at lower prices, the price will go up."
Responding to the increased demand and fear of further price increases, local wholesale gasoline distributors have made runs on the refinery terminals to shore up their supplies of today's "inexpensive" gasoline, said Chevron regional marketing director Brent Lowe.
He said rack prices - the wholesale price distributors pay refineries for gasoline - went up as much as 8 cents a gallon Friday. The pump price includes the rack price plus freight, distributor markup, taxes, overhead and retailer markup.
"I can't announce any price moves yet, but there appears to be continued pressure on prices, and there are further increases occurring," he said.
But Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., doesn't buy the excuses given by gasoline station owners nationwide who are giving the same reasons as Salt Lake retailers for price increases, and he has called on the White House to investigate possible profiteering.
"On Thursday, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Today, less than 24 hours later, there are troubling signs that the oil industry may be invading the pockets of consumers," Lieberman, said.
"The American people have enough trouble with Saddam Hussein. We don't need oil companies making matters worse."
According to the Associated Press, Lieberman sent a letter to President Bush asking him to set up a task force on oil prices with representatives from the Energy and Justice departments, the Federal Trade Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Lieberman said the group's purpose would be to "shine a bright spotlight on the oil industry, to let importers and refiners know we're watching," and thereby enable Congress to respond to any potential problems.