The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in San Diego County rose Tuesday to its highest amount since May 17, 2014, increasing 12 cents to $4.156.
The average price has risen 65.7 cents since Thursday, including 13.4 cents on Monday, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. It is 53.4 cents more than a month ago and 5.6 cents higher than one year ago.
The rising prices are the result of insufficient supply to meet demand, caused by local refineries being outbid by foreign competitors for imported oil, the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance remaining offline because of an explosion in February and the Tesoro refinery in Carson being at least partly offline for its annual maintenance, according to Marie Montgomery of the Automobile Club of Southern California.
