June 22 (Bloomberg) -- The average price of regular gasoline at U.S. filling stations rose to $4.10 a gallon, an industry survey showed.

The price climbed 10 cents on June 20 from two weeks earlier, according to oil-industry analyst Trilby Lundberg's survey of 7,000 filling stations nationwide. Gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 2.6 percent to $3.4392 a gallon on June 20.

Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi's statement today that the country, the world's biggest oil exporter, may raise production beyond a planned 200,000 barrel-a-day increase in July augurs a decline in pump prices, Lundberg said.

``Even though almost anything could cause crude-oil prices to jump once again, for example further problems in Nigeria, this is Saudi Arabia we're talking about, and Saudi Arabia has spoken,'' she said.

AAA, the nation's biggest motoring club, said today that regular gasoline at the pump reached $4.073 a gallon, up 36 percent from $2.985 a year earlier.

Gasoline prices have risen as inventories dropped more than 11 percent since March 7 to 208.9 million barrels, the Energy Department said June 18.

Crude oil for July delivery rose $2.69, or 2 percent, to $134.62 a barrel in New York Mercantile June 20. Futures climbed to a record $139.89 on June 16. The cost of crude oil determines about 73 percent of the pump price of gasoline, according to the Energy Department.

Lower Consumption

Record gasoline prices are causing consumers to cut back on fuel purchases. On June 17, MasterCard Inc. said U.S. gasoline demand fell 3.2 percent from a year ago, according to its weekly SpendingPulse report.

Consumers purchased an average 9.305 million barrels of gasoline a day in the week ended June 13, down from 9.614 million a year earlier. Gasoline demand compared with a year earlier has dropped for eight consecutive weeks as pump prices rose, according to the report. Demand typically climbs on a week-to- week basis going into the summer months.

Surging fuel prices, slumping home values and a rising unemployment rate have hurt U.S. consumer confidence, which fell to the lowest level since 1980 in June.

The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment fell to 56.7 from 59.8 in May. The measure averaged 85.6 in 2007. The report also showed the inflation rate that Americans expect over the coming five years held at 3.4 percent, the same as for May and the highest since 1995.

Unemployment Claims

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell, signaling the softening in the labor market isn't getting worse.

Initial jobless claims fell 5,000 to 381,000 in the week ended June 14, a higher total than forecast, from a revised 386,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said June 19 in Washington. The total number of people collecting benefits dropped 76,000 to 3.06 million for the week ended June 7.

The U.S. gasoline supply may decline over the next month as lower profit margins reduce the incentive for refiners to turn crude oil into gasoline.

The margin for turning a barrel of crude oil into one barrel of gasoline has fallen 31 percent this month to about $9.10 a barrel, based on futures prices.

The highest average price for self-serve regular gasoline was $4.59 a gallon in Los Angeles and Fresno, California, Lundberg said. The lowest was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at $3.76 a gallon. On New York's Long Island, the price was $4.29 a gallon.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Moore in New York at jemoore@bloomberg.net; Jody Shenn in New York at jshenn@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 22, 2008 16:57 EDT