Well it's not even the heat of summer nor the height of the travel season, ladies and gentlemen, and yet it seems that we've broken a record. The average pump price for regular unleaded gasoline in these United States is now at a high of $3.07 per gallon. Last year held the previous record which saw national averages spike to $3.03 per gallon on August 11th.

In the past two weeks alone, petrol prices have sky rocketed by 20¢.

According to an AP report that included an interview with an industry analyst, the higher prices are due to faulty refineries.

"The recent increases are due mostly to refinery problems, [Oil Analyst Trilby] Lundberg said, noting there have been at least a dozen additional partial shutdowns in the U.S. and internationally that cut refining capacity.

One of the nation's largest refineries, a BP PLC plant in Indiana that processes more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day, will not be operating at full capacity for several months due to unexpected repairs.

Other examples include a 170,000-barrel-per-day plant in McKee, Texas, that was shut down for a month, and a 470,000 barrels-per-day plant in Texas City operating at less than half capacity."

Unexpected repairs? Perfectly timed, I'd say.

[Source: MSNBC]