Here's Why Gas Prices Spiked Last Week

Last week, U.S. gasoline prices jumped 3.4%, or $0.12, to more than $3.62 a gallon:

What happened?

As we've explained, fuel is a finished product traded on the international market. Thus, it closely tracks the price of oil priced to the Brent benchmark, the contract traded in London.

So what has Brent been up to?

Check it out:

Brent's up 7% since the end of June.

So why's Brent been going up?

Analysts point to unrest in Egypt, although it looks highly unlikely the Suez canal will be affected by the country's political turmoil.

There have also been production outages in Libya, following protests there.

Also of note: Dan Strumpf at the Wall Street Journal reports there's been a new wave of glitches at US refiners, which has slowed down production and adds to price of finished products like gasoline.

But if you look at the Brent chart again, you can already see prices came down sharply Friday.

So barring any new news, fuel prices should soon come down again too.