price of gasoline has again climbed above $3 a gallon, lifted skyward on the twin winds of worry about insistent demand and uncertain supply.

The national average rose to $3.015, up about two pennies last week, according to the Lundberg Survey, which tracks prices at more than 5,000 stations. It's a third of a penny higher than the national average last Sept. 9, after Hurricane Katrina roared through the Gulf of Mexico.

Between air conditioning and summer vacations, energy use has been steady. So the recent price push has come mostly on concern that producers will increasingly have trouble.

That supply-side fear has been fueled in recent days by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. As that battle continued, so did the lingering danger of entangling oil-producing nations like Syria and Iran or even Saudi Arabia.

Adjusted for inflation, national prices are now higher than they have been at any time in a quarter-century, according to Lundberg: In current dollars, the average in March 1981 was $3.15 a gallon.

Oil on Monday closed on the futures market at $75.05 a barrel; gasoline futures rose to $2.3142 a gallon.

Among current worries:

• A fire at a Venezuelan refinery that pumps nearly 1 million barrels per day of gasoline has forced a shutdown expected to last at least five months.

• A 349,000-barrel-per-day ExxonMobil refinery in Texas will halt production in August for maintenance.

• Shell announced yet another cutback from Nigerian fields, this one caused by a pipeline leak.

• Weather forecasters reported a tropical disturbance forming in the Gulf of Mexico, which is the scene of more than a quarter of U.S. oil production and gasoline refining.

The economy has so far shrugged off higher energy costs, but consumer spending continues to be at risk.

John Drummond, co-owner of unicycle.com, said the price of products he buys from overseas are increasingly burdened with higher fuel charges.

"Sometimes we're able to absorb the cost, and sometimes we have to raise the price," he said.

Gas prices in Atlanta averaged slightly under $3 a gallon Monday, according to atlantagasprices.com, which collects price reports from motorists.

But Atlanta has seen higher. After Hurricane Katrina, gas prices briefly averaged $3.15 a gallon — and much higher at some stations — in the face of an apparent shortage of gas. After Gov. Sonny Perdue issued an executive order allowing hefty fines on gougers, prices gradually eased.

While temporary problems at refineries can boost U.S. gas prices, the primary push has always been the price of crude. Oil accounts for more than 50 percent of the pump price, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Oil prices have been above $70 a barrel consistently since early April. But they shot higher with the escalation of fighting along the Lebanese border. That higher cost is now finding its way to the pump.

The gap between demand and production has shrunk in recent years, making any supply disruption more damaging. But it is not just the sufficiency of oil that drives prices.

Much of the increase has been spurred by worries about war. But if every insurgency were calmed and every terrorist eliminated, there would still be anxiety about global capacity.

World demand is likely to climb 1.8 percent next year, according to the International Energy Agency. That comes from growth in the United States, but also in the booming Indian and Chinese economies.

Pessimists argue that the world is approaching the inevitable halfway point in oil exploitation — the moment when production peaks, plateaus and tips slowly downward.

That argument remains a minority position, but its proponents are no longer considered a lunatic fringe. And traders are becoming more sensitized to evidence that the world is reaching a peak.

Not quite lost in the worrisome noise on Monday was a report in the Los Angeles Times this week that the world's second-largest oil field, located just off the shore of Mexico, has seen a relentless decline in production.

Mexico is the No. 2 supplier of oil to the United States.

Contribted By The AJC