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The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose 13 cents in the past two weeks, bringing it up 26 cents since prices bottomed out after a nine-month slide ended in January, according to the Lundberg survey released on Sunday.

Regular grade gasoline rose to an average price of $2.33 per gallon, according to the biweekly survey dated Feb. 20, up from the previous survey on Feb. 6. Gasoline is down $1.08 a gallon from the same year-ago period, and there is no shortage of gasoline, said survey publisher Trilby Lundberg in Camarillo, California.

"It was dropping dramatically for nine months straight and then it hit bottom, and now it's up 26 cents since then, the latest being 13 cents the past two weeks," Lundberg said. The highest-priced gasoline in the survey area of the 48 contiguous U.S. states was in Los Angeles at $2.91 per gallon. The lowest price was in Salt Lake City at $1.91 per gallon. A steelworkers' strike and a refinery explosion Wednesday at an Exxon Mobil Corp plant in Torrance, California, helped push gasoline prices higher, Lundberg said.

SOCIAL

Study predicts gas prices will surge back to $3.20 a gallon within two years http://t.co/gtHDhrq45T pic.twitter.com/4cFSnT4yy4 — NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) February 20, 2015

Americans are saving their extra cash from lower gas prices, for now: http://t.co/pEHJUEkgHF — Chris Rugaber (@ChrisRugaber) February 18, 2015

-- Reuters