Finance and Economic

As tens of millions tank up and hit the road for Memorial Day weekend, gas prices are rising fast enough to revive painful memories of the $4-a-gallon summer of 2008.

Rest easy: The economic slack created by the recession all but guarantees prices won’t spike the way they did last year, analysts say.

The average retail gas price was $2.22 a gallon in the city of St. Louis and surrounding Missouri counties on Wednesday, according to the auto club AAA. That’s almost 30 cents a gallon higher than a month ago, but $1.43 less than the same date last year. In the Metro East, where taxes are higher, the average price at the pump was $2.37, compared with $3.91 last year.

Across the country, a gallon of unleaded averaged $2.36. That’s much cheaper than the $3.80 it cost this time last year, but prices are still up about 30 cents a gallon this month, enough to make drivers flinch.

"Uh oh," cab driver Jay Biyani said while filling up this week in Manhattan. "That’s the first thing I say when I pull into this gas station each day. Right now it’s not that bad, but it’s a lot worse than two weeks ago."

Even so, AAA estimates 32.4 million people, or about one in 10 Americans, will travel over the holiday, most of them driving. That’s a slight 1.5 percent increase from 2008.

Vacations make a lot more sense for many families than they did last year. Airfares, hotels and tourist attractions are cheaper this year because of the recession.

Gas is no exception online health insurance quotes. For much of this year, there has been a glut of gasoline in storage around the country, keeping prices low. But gasoline has jumped this month. Refineries are taking in less oil because of the glut in gas, and the cutbacks are showing up at the pump.

The trading markets are at work, too. By mid-February, the price of oil had fallen so far — below $34 a barrel, compared with a peak of $147 last July — that large investors couldn’t resist buying in.

Investing momentum feeds on itself, and government data suggest speculative trades are on the rise, meaning people are buying in simply because they know they can sell for a quick profit.

"Anyone who says speculators are not playing a role in this run is delusional," said Tom Kloza, publisher and oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

The same thing happened last year, to a much greater extent. Because when the Wall Street crisis struck and the economy tanked, oil prices collapsed. Gas fell to $1.61 by the end of the year.

So how high will gas go?

Darin Newsom, senior energy analyst at DTN in Omaha, Neb., said he expects the average price for regular unleaded to push $2.80 a gallon this summer — higher than many other forecasts.

Jeff Tomich of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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