°®¶¹´«Ã½

Oil fell to a two-week low Monday to less than $100 a barrel in part due to concerns that Japan’s big earthquake Friday will hurt growth and reduce fuel demand in that country’s economy, the world’s third-largest, Bloomberg reported.

Fuel prices have now jumped so high that we all need to pay close attention. Not that we can do much about these skyrocketing prices, except pay and grumble.

U.S. retail diesel prices shot up another 15.5 cents last week in the largest one-week increase in nearly three years, as the national average price reached $3.871 a gallon, the highest since October 2008, the Department of Energy said.

Gasoline’s national average price jumped 33 cents in the past two weeks to an average $3.51 a gallon, according to the latest Lundberg Survey of filling stations released Sunday.

U.S. retail fuel prices shot up last week as petroleum closed above $100 a barrel for the first time since September 2008 and as unrest in Libya and the Middle East left people in trucking wondering how high prices might go and how long they might stay there.

U.S. retail diesel prices continued to climb last week, rising 3.9 cents a gallon to $3.573, the Department of Energy reported, as crude oil topped $100 a barrel for the first time since October 2008.