Gasoline prices rose for the first time in more than a month, according to a nationwide survey of gasoline station credit card swipes Friday, CNNMoney reported

The average price of regular unleaded gasoline rose nine-tenths of a cent to $3.669 a gallon from $3.66 a day earlier, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

The price increase is the first in more than 40 days since falling from a record high of $4.114 a gallon set July 17.

Prices had been following an 18 percent decline in the price of crude oil, the main ingredient of gasoline.

Overall, gasoline prices have fallen off their highs in recent weeks. But prices are still 33 percent above the same time last year, when a gallon of gas cost $2.769.

Oil producers evacuated rigs before the arrival of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is forecast to become the largest hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since Katrina, Bloomberg reported.

Royal Dutch Shell plc and ConocoPhillips started pulling workers from Gulf of Mexico platforms in a region that pumps 26 percent of U.S. oil and 14 percent of the nation’s natural gas.

Louisiana officials said they will start evacuating residents today in two parishes around New Orleans that house refineries owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Valero Energy Corp.