HOUSTON — With prices at their lowest point for the Easter weekend since 2004, holiday travelers have something to cheer about.

But they better fill up their tanks fast.

Prices at the pump are climbing quickly as oil prices firm and the summer driving season approaches. On Thursday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline rose above $2 a gallon for the first time since Dec. 31 — albeit by only a penny.

Across the country, according to the AAA motor club, drivers are paying 31 cents more per gallon than only a month ago.

The principal reason for the rise in gasoline prices is the roughly 50 percent spike in the American oil benchmark from $26 a barrel on Feb. 11 to just over $40 a barrel before crude prices sputtered in the last couple of days.

But there are a pushing gasoline prices up, particularly on the West Coast. A recent power outage at ’s refinery in Torrance, Calif., a plant that has still not fully recovered from an explosion early last year, has slowed gasoline production. Californians are of $2.73 a gallon for regular gas, according to AAA, 72 cents higher than the national average and 42 cents more than they were paying a month ago.

Much of the recent price rise is from changes in seasonal driving habits, including spring break road trips. At the same time, many refineries are retooling to produce summer blends, which leads to a temporary decline in local fuel production.

The Energy Department last month projected that the average retail price for regular gasoline this year would be $1.89 a gallon, down from $2.43 for 2015. Economists and energy experts say restaurants and the travel business have benefited, but the benefits to the economy have been surprisingly muted, perhaps because so many jobs in oil-producing states like Oklahoma, Louisiana and North Dakota.

“People still have more money to spend,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service. “The mystery is: Are people spending it, or are they saving it, or are they paying off some debt?”

Whatever the answer, oil and gasoline prices are not a big political issue this year, and few drivers are openly complaining. That is because drivers are saving 31 cents a gallon from what they were paying a year ago, representing a saving for the average motorist of roughly $30 a month. Two years ago drivers spent roughly $1.60 more a gallon than today, before oil prices collapsed by roughly 70 percent since the summer of 2014.

People are using some of those savings to buy more gas. Motorists have been encouraged to drive more and buy bigger vehicles, including S.U.V.s, which guzzle more fuel. Government weekly estimates of domestic gasoline demand so far this year suggest a 4 percent increase over the same period last year, leading some to project that the country should easily surpass its 2007 record for gasoline consumption.

Increasing gasoline demand in the United States has also helped push oil prices higher. In addition, supply is slowing in several oil-producing countries, including the United States. There is also the possibility that Saudi Arabia, Russia and a handful of other producers will freeze their output in the coming weeks.

Since the lifting of nuclear sanctions, Iran has added several hundred thousand more barrels of crude a day on world markets. But that modest addition has been more than offset by terrorist attacks on pipelines in the Middle East and unplanned production outages in several countries.

The oil and gas industry continues to suffer through its worst downturn in more than a generation. At $40 a barrel, most oil companies can avert bankruptcy, but few wells can be profitably drilled, and financial turmoil still grips the industry. Linn Energy, a major Houston-based oil and gas company, recently stopped meeting payment obligations to creditors and may well join the scores of mostly small companies than have fallen into bankruptcy. One of the latest was Denver-based Emerald Oil, with assets of $405.4 million and debts of $361 million, which filed for Chapter 11 protection this week.

Many in the industry caution that once oil prices rise a bit, many companies will complete unfinished wells and even drill new ones, putting pressure on prices once again.

Over 1,200 oil rigs have been idled in the United States over the last two years, and most oil companies have slashed their exploration budgets by more than 40 percent from 2014 levels. That has caused a sharp drop in American production, by about 600,000 barrels a day from a year ago.

Several of the largest international producers will gather in Doha next month to discuss curtailing or at least restraining output. Nevertheless most experts expect that the current, stubborn worldwide glut in oil and petroleum products should keep crude prices well below their average levels of the last decade until at least the end of the year.

“The industry continues in severe distress, severe,” said Ken Hunter, president of Vaquero Energy, a California-based oil company. Even with oil prices approaching $40 a barrel, Mr. Hunter added, “I feel a little better, but personally I expect more downward volatility again in the price.”