AAA: Sorry, but gas prices not heading to $2 after all

Say goodbye to the possibility of $2-per-gallon gas this summer.

Ten days ago, travel club AAA noticed that West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures had closed at $45.52 per barrel, the lowest level in six months, while wholesale gas supplies were increasing.

Prices at the pump were following suit, and AAA released a statement saying if the trend continued, motorists could start seeing various Florida gas stations selling gas near $2 per gallon by the summer. The trend didn’t continue. Oh, gas prices kept going down — dropping 5 cents last week and 14 cents over the past 24 days to a statewide average of $2.32 on Monday.

But the price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange rebounded from that $45.52 per barrel and closed Monday at $48.85 — up $1.01 from its closing price on Friday.

Oil and gasoline futures wholesale prices shot up last week following a U.S. Energy Information Administration report Wednesday that showed increased demand and the biggest one-week drawdown in crude stockpiles since December, AAA said in its weekly gas price update.

So AAA spokesman Mark Jenkins was singing a different tune as the week began: “Although gas prices could slip a little lower this week, rising oil and gasoline futures prices have already caused that downward shift to stall in some markets.”

The “unseasonable pump price plunge … shouldn’t last much longer,” Jenkins was quoted as in the update as saying.

Around South Florida, where local gas taxes keep pump prices higher than the state and national averages, the average per-gallon pump price in Broward County on Monday was $2.37.

In Miami-Dade County, motorists were paying an average $2.38, and Palm Beach County drivers were coughing up $2.42.

Bargain hunters in Palm Beach County should head to Lake Park, where nine stations were still selling gas for $2.19 a gallon, according to the price comparison website GasBuddy.com.

They include Speedway on Old Dixie Highway and Northlake Boulevard; Marathon at Northlake Boulevard and 10th Street; RaceTrac and Murphy USA on North Congress Avenue; and five stations along West Blue Heron Boulevard, west of North Congress Avenue.

The lowest price in Broward County was $2.15 at two stations in Wilton Manors: Chevron on Wilton Drive at Ninth Avenue and Valero on Northeast 26th Street and Northeast 15th Avenue.

The lowest price in MiamiDade: $2.17 at Rocket Fuel on West Flagler Street at Northwest 57th Avenue in west Miami; and Amerika Gas on Northwest 167th Street at Northwest 42nd Avenue.