This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There is one negative symptom that Spring is just around the corner — gasoline prices have been creeping up.
Or at least in Utah, they're not so much creeping as leaping. The statewide average for a price per gallon jumped 26 cents in the last month, according to AAA Utah. The average price is $3.35 per gallon, 14 cents lower than the national average of $3.49.
It's not just the usual warmer weather and the resulting rise in road trips to blame. Apparently, you also can point to tensions in the Ukraine for the gas prices, according to a AAA Utah spokesperson.
"The rapidly escalating tensions in the Ukraine pressured West Texas Intermediate crude prices to move up to a greater than six-month high last Monday," Rolayne Fairclough of AAA Utah said in a statement. "However, as the situation stabilized, crude prices dropped by more than $3 per barrel by mid-week. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict and other geopolitical tensions are likely to keep oil prices from falling too far in the near future."
Of the biggest cities in Utah, Salt Lake City and Provo had the biggest price increase in the last month with a 28-cents-per-gallon increase. St. George was the lowest with a 17-cents-per-gallon increase.
The average price for a gallon of gas in Salt Lake City, Provo and Ogden was $3.33.
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