NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: As temperature plunge across the nation, heating oil prices are rising. Earlier this week, President Clinton released $45 million in emergency heating fuel funds. Here's CNN's Ed Garsten.</s>ED GARSTEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From home heating oil, to jet fuel, to the gas that powers your car, the prices have hit their highest level in years for a consumers in a frosty mood.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very high, nasty.</s>GARSTEN: The reason is simple. The nations that belong to the oil cartel OPEC have cut production, setting the price of crude soaring.</s>DAVID SOWERBY, FINANCIAL ANALYST: A year ago, oil prices were down lose to 11, $12 a barrel, and as we sit here today they're closer to $30 a barrel.</s>GARSTEN: The average price of unleaded gasoline nationwide is $1.32 a gallon, up almost four cents in the last week. Home heating oil prices have risen 40 cents a gallon or more in the last week after the worst weather of the winter hit the Midwest and East Coast, and that translates into a huge increase in a homeowner's heating oil bill.</s>BRIAN DONNELLY, ATLAS OIL COMPANY: An average customer will get three, four, five deliveries a year, so you're looking at 400 bucks of incremental costs per year.</s>GARSTEN: Several airlines are adding ticket surcharges of between three and $10 each way on domestic flights to offset their fuel costs. (on camera): With hopes of lowering oil prices, some members of Congress are turning to President Clinton. They want him to sell some of the nation's 567 million-barrel strategic petroleum reserve, oil that was set aside after the Arab oil embargo in the '70s. (voice-over): But if OPEC remains committed to tightening the valve on production, some experts predict oil prices could gush over the $30-a-barrel mark just in time for the summer travel season. Ed Garsten, CNN, Taylor, Michigan.
Consumers Feel the Pinch as Plunging Temperatures, OPEC Cuts Send Price of Oil Soaring