2-WEEK HIKE PRICE HIKE IN GASOLINE BIGGEST EVER.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

U.S. gasoline pump prices soared by nearly 13 cents per gallon in the past two weeks even though oil prices remained steady, an analyst said Sunday.

The average price of gas, including all grades and taxes, was $1.67 on Friday, up 12.69 cents or 8.4 percent from April 6, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations nationwide.

San Fernando Valley residents are feeling the U.S. pump pain despite stable prices from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

``I was just noticing how high prices are,'' Anita Torres said Sunday. The 22-year-old Reseda resident was filling up her Ford pickup with unleaded fuel that cost $1.71 a gallon at a Woodland Hills gas station.

``I don't think it's fair that prices are going up again,'' she said. ``As much as they've gone up in the last six months, I don't like it at all.''

The latest hike is the largest two-week jump in terms of cents per gallon, not adjusted for inflation, since the survey began about 50 years ago, analyst Trilby Lundberg said.

``This is purely a U.S. gasoline market phenomenon - not crude oil, not OPEC,'' Lundberg said. ``Crude oil prices are little changed for weeks now.''

Distributors say supplies are tight because environmental protection requirements, kicking in for spring and summer, are forcing more complicated and expensive refining to reformulate gasoline so it produces less smog.

Price hikes per gallon ranged from less than 7 cents for self-serve regular gas in the West, which already had the country's highest prices, to 23 cents in Chicago.

Sam Hussin, manager of a Shell station in Chicago, said prices also started rising around this time last summer, ``but not like this.''

``Last year $2 was the max, and now it's already over $2 and the summer just started.'' Hussin said.