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lower prices than the $4.65 in her neighborhood, but the pumps were closed.
• The part-time preschool teacher said her husband already spends $500 a month on gas, in part because he commutes nearly 100 miles a day to a new sales job after being unemployed for a year.
• "All of this is killing us, just because we've got big cars," she said.
• They've already parked their GMC Yukon SUV indefinitely. If gas prices keep rising, Olson said they'll sell her husband's Infiniti G35 that requires premium fuel and buy a more efficient car, while making their children ride their bikes to their activities.
• "Just last night, we were looking at economical cars, we were car shopping," she said.
• A web of refinery and transmission problems is to blame, analysts said. The situation is compounded by a pollution law that requires a special blend of cleaner-burning gasoline from April to October, said Denton Cinquegrana, executive editor of the Oil Price Information Service, which helps AAA compile its price survey.
• "We use the phrase 'the perfect storm,' and you know what, this current one makes those other perfect storms look like a drizzle. I don't want to scare anyone, but this is a big problem," Cinquegrana said. "Run-outs are happening left and right."
• Among the recent disruptions, an Aug. 6 fire at a Chevron Corp. refinery in Richmond left one of the region's largest refineries producing at a reduced capacity, and a Chevron pipeline that moves crude oil to Northern California also was shut down.
• There was some good news.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. said a refinery in Torrance returned to normal operations Friday after a power failure Monday disrupted production for most of the week. State officials said with the refinery coming back online, prices should start falling.
• "The wholesale market appears to have peaked and is heading down," said Alison apRoberts, a spokeswoman for the California Energy Commission. "Because it takes a little while for the price reductions to funnel through the system, consumers at the pumps should start to see some declines over the next week."
• Gasoline inventories in California, however, are still at their lowest point in more than 10 years, a situation made worse by the mandate for the special summer gasoline blend. Few refineries outside the state can make it, meaning there are few outside sources to draw from for help, Cinquegrana said.
• The California Air Resources Board was reviewing a request from the California Independent Oil Marketers Association for a waiver that would allow gas stations to begin selling winter-blend gasoline before Halloween.
• David Clegern, a spokesman for the air board, said the California Energy Com

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