Carol Thorp Few Quotations

Over the next few weeks we'll be up to where we were before Hurricane Katrina, and that's going to put more gasoline on the market. We think that will cause gas prices to start coming down over the Memorial Day weekend.

Wholesale gasoline prices have dropped across the country and West Coast gasoline inventory is strong. That actually led to a slight decline in pump prices in the last few days, although overall averages are still higher than at this time last week. However, oil industry analysts expect wholesale prices to start heading up again once the more expensive summer-grade fuel starts going on the market at the end of February.

Prices went up throughout Southern California this past week, but not at as rapid a pace as we've seen during other gas price spikes. It's likely that increases will continue for at least the next few weeks.

Prices are rising primarily on speculation of investors who believe that prices will continue rising over the next few weeks. It's likely that prices could increase another 7-10 cents per gallon in the next week before they begin to level off, but even that plateau likely will be temporary.

It's likely that increases will continue for at least the next few weeks.