WASHINGTON – Gasoline prices continue to rise for the third consecutive week, bouncing up 5.5 cents in the past week to reach $2.296 a gallon, according to the latest figures released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) earlier this week.

EIA senior analyst Mike Burdette told USA Today that he doesn’t see any indication that gasoline prices will reach $3 per gallon. "Realistically on a given day or week we could see $2.60" this spring or summer, he says.

The newspaper reported that local petroleum retailers feel the pinch as wholesale prices rise but they struggle to keep prices competitive. "In South Paris, Maine, where I hang out, the street (retail) price is $2.20; rack (wholesale) price is $2.15, and to get it there is more than 3 cents, so I'm left with just over a penny profit," NACS Board member Jinger Duryea, president of C.N. Brown Company, told the newspaper.

Duryea said that the fees she has to pay credit and debit card banks chew up her profit margin because "70 percent of my customers are using debit or credit cards. When they're finished with me, I'm losing 4 cents a gallon. … If prices go up, no one out there is salivating more than the credit card companies."

Duryea thinks motorists should be more aware of the gasoline taxes applied to every gallon: "The state government is getting about 27 cents, the federal government is getting 18 cents and I'm getting 100 percent of the blame."