With Memorial Day behind us, GasBuddy, a nationwide gasoline price tracking service says Americans can soon expect to see gas prices rise above $5 at the pump nationwide very soon. Citing a new increase in the wholesale price of gasoline, gas buddy says the retail price will soon follow.
According to GasBuddy, for the sixth consecutive week, the nation’s average gas price has rallied, rising 0.9 cents from a week ago to $4.60 per gallon today according to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 11 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is up 42.8 cents from a month ago and $1.56 per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has fallen 4.0 cents in the last week and stands at $5.50 per gallon.
“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,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “While gasoline demand has been seasonally soft, the large decline in refining capacity over the last few years has meant that refiners are struggling to produce even lower amounts of refined products. This has led inventories to struggle to see any gains, boosting concern that they won’t be able to catch up. Coupled with continued talk that the EU is still working on sanctioning Russian oil, even though Hungary is a hold out, oil markets are quite on edge. 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. Motorists in the Great Lakes could see prices jump early in the week to new record highs, and the rest of the nation will follow. Odds are rising that we’ll eventually see the national average reach that dreaded $5 per gallon.”
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