Your weekend fill-up: Prices remain steady

Wait until Monday to fill up?Gasoline prices in the Kansas City area are essentially unchanged heading into the weekend compared with a week ago.

The average price of unleaded regular on the Kansas side was $2.54, down 1 cent from last weekend.

On the Missouri side, prices were on average a penny higher at $2.45, according to the latest AAA data.

Motorists can find slightly lower prices by checking on the Kansas City gas survey Web site here.

Nationwide, retail gas prices increased for the third straight day, adding less than a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.642 a gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is 4.6 cents more expensive than last month and 62.2 cents more expensive than the same time last year, when prices were in free fall.

In other energy news Friday, from Bloomberg News:
--Natural gas prices have dropped by more than 12 percent in the past month as the country continues to sip at its energy reserves and a balmy November allowed homeowners to leave the heat off.

Retail prices for natural gas, or what many consumers will pay to heat their homes, are expected to be substantially lower this year.

The recession has kept natural gas demand low most of the year. With manufacturers shuttering factories and closing offices, the country is using less electricity and power plants are burning less natural gas.

Analyst Stephen Schork noted that with industrial production still weak, home heating would be the primary source of natural gas demand for the rest of the year.

“What does that say about the current recovery, or lack thereof?” Schork said in a research note.

The U.S. has added more natural gas into storage every week since March 27, and there is now more natural gas tucked away in the U.S. than at any point in history. Storage houses are crammed beyond their listed capacity in the West on the Gulf of Mexico, and they’re nearing capacity elsewhere, according to data from the Department of Energy.

-- Benchmark crude also dropped Friday, giving up 81 cents to $76.65 a barrel on the last trading day for the December contract. Crude prices for January delivery lost 65 cents to $77.40.