Projections show prices likely to continue rising.
QUICK FACTS:
- The national average for the price of gas was $4.71 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA.
- Gas prices have shown a steady upward trajectory, climbing 65% in the last year.
- The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that gas prices adjusted for inflation to the 2008 rate would need to exceed $5.30 a gallon to break the record for financial impact.
- Despite the temporary drop to just over $4 per gallon in April when the Biden administration released oil from emergency reserves, that reprieve isn’t believed likely to help for long.
- Some experts believe the national average for a gallon of gas will pass the $6 mark in the summer of 2022.
PRICE PROJECTIONS:
- According to JPMorgan, prices could surge an additional 37% by August, hitting a $6.20 per gallon national average, pushed upward by “expectations of strong driving demand” throughout the summer driving season.
- “Typically, refiners produce more gasoline ahead of the summer road-trip season, building up inventories,” Natasha Kaneva, the head of JPMorgan’s global commodities strategy team, wrote.
- However, since mid-April, “gasoline inventories have fallen counter seasonally and today sit at the lowest seasonal levels since 2019,” the analyst continued.
- “After several weeks of soaring gas prices, last week saw prices nationally slow down ahead of Memorial Day, but I’m afraid the good news ends there,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said. “As a result of the continued decline in gasoline inventories in recent weeks, wholesale gas prices surged last week, which will likely boost prices at the pump in short order.”
BACKGROUND:
- Since Joe Biden took office in January of 2021 gas prices have almost doubled.
- On the day of his inauguration, fuel prices were just $2.39 per gallon, according to AAA. Since then, prices have increased sharply due in part to economic pressures as well as inflation.
- Biden said at the White House yesterday that there is little his administration can do in the short term to push down fuel prices, saying they’re not likely to fall anytime soon.
