BOSTON (CBS) – With gas prices up more than 30 cents in a month in Massachusetts, $4 a gallon gas will be coming soon and it could get worse, according to an oil industry analyst.

“Clearly, we’re on an unbelievable upward trend. It’s going to be sticker shock at the pump. We’re going to see $4.50, potentially $5 a gallon, although I think that’s a stretch. The price spike that’s still to come at the pump is going to be significant,” analyst John Kilduff told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Tuesday.

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Kilduff said prices keep rising thanks to a shortage of refineries along the East Coast and that’s made us more and more reliant on importing gasoline in this part of the country.

“It’s literally modern day alchemy. I mean, they’re turning crude oil into gold right now when they make gasoline from crude oil barrels,” he said.

However, Kilduff says there’s always a breaking-point – as prices rise, demand falls and prices ease back. It’s simple economics.

But that point was once the $4 a gallon mark.

We just don’t yet know what that breaking point price is.

“We have seen increases in gasoline demand because more and more people are getting back to work, thank goodness. But all of that could unravel. This is going to be very damaging to the economy, to consumer sentiment and it could reverse a lot of the economic gains that we’ve been enjoying over the past several months.”

The average price for a gallon of self-serve, regular unleaded is currently $3.72 in Massachusetts, below the national average by just one cent.