Southern California gas and diesel prices will probably spike two to six cents this weekend thanks to panic buying at the wholesale level. The price spikes were prompted by a flaring event (also known as a "fire") at British Petroleum's Carson California refinery.

British Petroleum, which owns and operates the Arco brand in California, reported a flaring event at its Arco refinery in Carson California refinery last night. According to industry analyst Robert van der Valk, the flaring occurred after an unplanned breakdown in BP's hydrogen desulfurization unit.

The unit, which removes sulfur pollutants from gasoline is essential to the production of California's cleaner-burning fuel. It will probably keep "flaring" through the weekend and into Monday, according to documents filed with the state of Californis.  The BP Carson refinery is important to California because it supplies 25% of Southern California's gasoline, and 40% of its diesel fule.

The event caused a surge in the price of fuel this morning, with many stations raising their gas and diesel prices by as much as ten cents a gallon overnight.

As of this morning, wholesale prices for regular unleaded and diesel fuel have increased between five to ten cents a a gallon on average (depending on the brand of fuel being sold), due largely to panic buying of surplus fuel on the local spot market. At close of business last night, spot market prices for regular unleaded were already 10 cents per gallon higher than they were one week a go.

Charles Langley, Manager of the UCAN Gas Project, doesn't expect to see a five or ten cent hike in the average price of gas at local pumps this weekend  because most retailers will opt to  absorb the losses rather than pass on the pain of a sudden price hike to their customers. 

"We are predicting an increase by Monday between two and five cents per gallon on average," says Langley, "but at many stations consumers will likely see sudden price changes of as much as ten cents a gallon fo diesel and regular unleaded."

Below are average gas prices for Southern California as of this morning. Consumers can find cheaper gas, and volunteer to report on gas prices in their neighborhood in real time at UCAN's Gas Project.