Prepare to pay: Despite low oil prices, the cost of fuel will keep rising

Crude oil prices have tanked in the first six weeks of the year.

But gas prices at the pump have crept higher since they bottomed out in December.

What gives?

"It's kind of like all the stars are lining up for gas prices to go up," said Eric Smith, associate director of the Entergy-Tulane Energy Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Some oil refineries along the Gulf Coast - where gasoline is produced - are scheduled for shutdowns next month; the recession has also cut demand, so fewer refineries are producing gasoline and now inventories are down, Smith said.

He expects gas prices across the region to jump by at least 15 cents per gallon in the coming weeks.

That's good news for Jon Whitenton, who was putting $1.70-per-gallon gas into his Chevrolet Silverado in Pharr earlier this week.

"I'd rather see gas go up," said the account manger for Kennedy Wire Rope and Sling, a Corpus Christi-based company that sells wire used in oil and gas production.

For him, business would improve if prices across South Texas would break the $2 mark.

Other analysts said they expect nationwide retail gas prices to push well above $2 per gallon in the coming months.

"We're going definitely over $2 and I bet we'll hit $2.50 before spring," Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, told The Associated Press. "This is going to be an unusual year."

Nationwide, prices already are approaching that mark.

Average fuel prices nationwide went up by nearly 4 cents per gallon this week, to $1.96. That's about 25 cents more per gallon than the average price this week in the Rio Grande Valley.

In Brownsville, some gasoline stations were selling fuel at $1.80 on Thursday, while less than 20 miles away in San Benito the price averaged $1.59 a gallon.

The economic downturn forced gas prices down along with crude oil, which nearly hit $150 per barrel last summer.

But with no end in sight for the nation's economic woes, the Tulane Energy Institute's Smith said he does not expect to see price spikes in the near future like those of last summer, when gas approached $4 a gallon in the Valley.

The recent drop in prices has been a ray of sunshine piercing the dark economic cloud that hangs over many drivers across the country.

But higher fuel prices would eclipse that bright spot.

"That would be tough, especially with the way the economy is right now," said Joe Molina, who fixes airplane engine parts for General Electric in McAllen.

As Molina, 20, filled up his Chevrolet Camaro at a Valero in Mission, he said he hopes gas prices stay low.

"Having a big engine on my car, it's not good when the price is high," he said.

For Ignacio Lucio, a 23-year-old masonry worker in Alamo, fears of record prices returning prompted him to draw a dollar sign on the back window of his Ford Crown Victoria - with an eight-cylinder engine beneath the hood - to try to sell it.

"I'm going to go buy myself a little car - a four-cylinder," he said as he filled up Monday at H.E.B. in Alamo.