Brace yourself: Beaufort gas prices expected to keep sliding up

Flickr user bitzcelt

The slide in gas prices ended way back at Christmas and since then we've marched up a full 46¢ per gallon in South Carolina — and now gas monitor GasBuddy.com says we can expect a 4 to 10¢ boost by Monday atop our $3.46 per gallon prices.

The website wrote, "A refinery fire in Washington state is making things worse, or about to make things much worse in Washington, Oregon, and California. Spot prices, a 'base' price that stations pay depending on their location, rose over 30-cents per gallon in that region yesterday, while spot prices in Chicago, the market that determines prices in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, rose a whopping 20-cents per gallon."

Ouch. 

It's an increase that complements the rise in crude oil prices.

And to top things off we're entering the spring travel months — so don't expect the gas prices to head south with the tourists.

For a brief flash in 2008, South Carolina saw above $4 per gallon prices. But 2012 is looking liking it may yet do a lot more flirtation than any year before with $4 per gallon.

Below is a terror-graph from prices during the last six months, and  there's plenty of things you can do to save on gas. And here's a map of Beaufort-area gas prices; there are still a few holdouts charging just $3.42 a gallon.

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