Jim Floyd, of Standish, feels the effect of lower gas prices every week.

“I fill up at half a tank and it used to be $60. Now, it’s $40, so $20 a week is very good,” he said. “I never dreamed I would see it this price again.”

Floyd shouldn’t get used to it.

Gas prices, which plummeted over the last three to four months and have settled around $2 a gallon, are expected to begin rising again soon. But motorists shouldn’t anticipate a sharp climb, with some analysts predicting prices will rise to perhaps $2.50 or even $2.80 when they peak in May and June.

“People will notice (prices rising) and fear this is the beginning of the next fuel apocalypse or ‘Mad Max’ movie, but it’s not,” said Tom Kloza, an oil analyst and founder of Oil Price Information Service.

The average price of a gallon of gas hit a statewide average of $2.10 on Monday before climbing to $2.12 on Tuesday, according to GasBuddy.com.

Those prices have just about bottomed out, most analysts agree, and they point to a variety of reasons for the price increases they see on the horizon.

Some oil companies have said they’re going to cut the amount of money they spend on oil exploration this year. There’s been a drop in the number of rigs in the United States drilling for oil. There’s a strike at some refineries.

But Kloza and Gregg Laskoski, the senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, both said those factors are less of an influence than the annual pattern in which prices begin rising shortly after the Super Bowl. “Prices go up when our attention returns to baseball, and then they drop when the Cubs get eliminated,” Kloza said.

Laskoski said the reason is the start of the spring driving season, at least in the South and West, that picks up as spring and summer return. That usually coincides with refineries cutting back their output as they reformulate their gasoline blends for warmer driving conditions, leading to a short-term crimp in supplies. The result is the low winter prices disappear, and the numbers on the pumps start to rise.

“The floor for retail pricing is behind us, and we can expect to see prices climb fairly consistently” for the next few months, Laskoski said.

Outside of the Northeast, Laskoski said, much of the country has had a relatively mild winter, and that may contribute to a slightly earlier-than-normal start to the peak driving season.

Neither analyst expects a return to prices above $3 a gallon, where they’ve been for the last couple of years.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration agrees and forecasts the average price for gasoline this year at $2.33, down from $3.36 a gallon in 2014.

The forecast is also relatively good for heating oil, which has fallen just as sharply as gasoline over the last year and allowed Mainers to keep more money in their pockets. The EIA is forecasting a 2015 average heating oil price of $2.71 a gallon, a dollar below last year’s average.

Heating oil prices are likely to jump slightly in the next few weeks because of the sharp cold hitting the Northeast and from a rise in crude oil prices, Kloza said, although the fuel is about half the price it was a year ago.

Kloza said the fundamentals of the oil industry remain poor, at least from the point of view of the oil and gas industry. Production, particularly in the U.S., is high and global demand is low because the economic forecasts outside of the U.S. are weak. That’s why he doesn’t see any reason prices are likely to spike as quickly as they dropped.

Kloza pointed out that the lowest gas prices Tuesday in Maine were $1.99 at the Irving Station on Commercial Street in Portland. While those prices are going to climb, he said, there’s little to suggest they might not fall back to current levels later this year.

“That guy should hold on to those ones” that are used to advertise prices, Kloza said.

The low prices warmed the heart of Sam Davidson, who filled up his Prius — 53 miles per gallon on his trips between his offices in Portland and Rockland — for $11.53.

“That’s an all-time low for me,” he said “I’m delighted.”

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