MarketWatch.com reports this afternoon that the price of a barrel of crude oil increased by $2.25, reaching a one-year high of $81.37. The “front-month contract,” as followed by the New York Mercantile Exchange, is the highest price since last October.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose almost nine cents to $2.57 a gallon: Read the rest of this entry »