Gasoline shoots up to $4.19 gallon in Minnesota

The price of gasoline shot into record territory above $4 a gallon in the Twin Cities and elsewhere in Minnesota Wednesday, a price monitoring website showed. The website, www.twincitiesgasprices.com, showed gas was selling for $4.25 at a Golden Valley filling station and the price had hit $4.19 at numerous other stations, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. That was a 30-cent jump in 24 hours. Motorists still could find a relative bargain, however, at a Get N Go station in the Lexington-Circle Pines area, which was selling gas for $3.73 a gallon, the newspaper said. Gail Weinholzer of AAA Minnesota blamed the surge mostly on reduced regional production capacity after two large refineries in the Chicago area went offline. The two refineries, which supply much of the gas supply for the Upper Midwest, may not resume production before Memorial Day and prices could stay high until the Fourth of July, she said. "Restarting a refinery is not like flipping an electrical switch," she said. "It takes time to ramp up, and other issues, glitches can occur. "It's going to be a mighty expensive summer. There is no relief in sight."