Motorists found themselves paying more at the pump this week. Pam Moen with AAA Wisconsin said retail gas prices have been climbing for the past week or so – then took a jump Thursday. “The average in Wisconsin for a gallon of regular unleaded is $2.94, and that’s up ten cents from a week ago and about thirty cents from where we were a year,” said Moen. Moen said a fire at a Chicago area refinery may be partly to blame, but notes there’s a lot of investor speculation as well. “Crude is trading at its highest level in more than two years,” she noted. “That has been prompted largely by the weakening of the U.S. dollar, compared to other global currencies.” And given the volatility of the crude market over the past several years, Moen said there’s really no way to predict how long these higher prices will last. “We seen over the last five years a pretty volatile cycle of ups and downs in prices, and the only thing constant seems to be change.”
