Pump prices kept climbing on Saturday, with regular at $4.111 and diesel $1.54 above where it sat a year ago

$4.111 a gallon. That is where AAA put the national average for regular gasoline on Saturday, and it is 95 cents above the figure it recorded a year ago.

The climb has been steady rather than sudden. A week ago the average was $3.992. A month ago it was $3.918. Saturday's reading was six-tenths of a cent above Friday's, which is the shape of a retail market absorbing a higher crude price over weeks rather than reacting to a single event, and it leaves the average about 90 cents below the highest national figure AAA lists, $5.016 on June 14, 2022.

Diesel moved further. AAA had it at $5.278 on Saturday, against $5.088 a week earlier and $3.742 a year ago, a rise of $1.54 over twelve months on the fuel that moves freight. Mid-grade was $4.607 and premium $4.989.

AAA named the cause itself. In its weekly update on July 23, when the regular average stood at $4.091, it said rising crude prices were behind the increase at the pump, citing volatility along the Strait of Hormuz and instability in the region, and it noted that most states were by then averaging $4 a gallon or higher. The same update carried Energy Information Administration figures: gasoline demand rose from 8.84 million barrels a day to 8.94 million, total domestic gasoline supply rose from 210.5 million barrels to 211.3 million, gasoline production averaged 9.7 million barrels a day, and commercial crude inventories stood at 411.7 million barrels, about 6 percent below the five-year average for this point in the year.

The spread across states is wide. On July 23 AAA had California at $5.57 and Hawaii at $5.42 at the top of its table, with Indiana at $3.53, Mississippi at $3.64 and Louisiana at $3.67 at the bottom. Electricity did not move at all. The national average for public charging at an electric vehicle station held at 42 cents per kilowatt hour.