For the third week in a row, the national average has remained steady holding at $2.28 per gallon according to GasBuddy.com.
While the pause in the national average is not a shock, motorists shouldn’t get used to it as gasoline prices have risen an average of 59 cents between mid-February and Memorial Day over the last five years.
“With refinery maintenance and turnarounds beginning across the country, we’ll likely see a draw down on winter gasoline stocks, leading the national average to rise in the week ahead,” said Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst. “Despite oil prices that remain range bound in the low to mid-$50’s per barrel, refinery status and the likely draw in inventories will win this week’s tug of war at the pump keeping upward pressure on gasoline prices. In addition, unexpected refinery outages could cause additional volatility or spikes in prices over the next two months due to the limited ability for other refiners to help offset any production losses while performing their planned maintenance.”
Lending credibility to expectations of an upward trend, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Weekly Petroleum Report last Thursday showed a decline of 2.6 million barrels of gasoline from inventories over the last week and refinery utilization at 84.3%, the lowest rate since April 2013, when refiners utilized 83.5% of their capacity. The low figure indicates refiners are ramping up on maintenance, thus seeing reductions in gasoline production. The bulk of seasonal maintenance generally lasts just over two months before refiners ramp up production as the summer driving season comes into view.
Stateside, gasoline price movements have been split nearly equally. 26 states saw average gasoline prices decline in the last week while 24 saw prices rise. Every state saw some movement, with Indiana leading decliners (down 10 cents per gallon), followed by Hawaii (down 3.8 cents) and Vermont (down 2.4 cents). Leading increases was Utah (up 7.7 cents), Ohio (up 6.8 cents) and Michigan (up 5.2 cents). One in ten gas stations across the country remained under $2 per gallon, a slight decline over last week when over 11% of stations were selling under $2. A year ago, for comparison, saw nine of ten stations nationally under the $2 mark.
Enjoying the nation’s cheapest gas price average is South Carolina ($2.02 per gallon), followed by Alabama ($2.06), Tennessee ($2.07), Mississippi ($2.07) and Oklahoma ($2.07). These states generally continue to see the nation’s lowest prices due to gas taxes and/or proximity to key energy infrastructure.
On the opposite end of the charts find’s the nation’s priciest gallon: Hawaii ($3.11) followed by California ($2.95), Washington ($2.75), Alaska ($2.69) and Nevada ($2.57).
Oil prices opened Monday up 53 cents a barrel at $54.49, close to the highest levels seen in several years thanks to a weakening dollar. Since oil is globally traded in U.S. dollars, a weakening dollar gives more purchasing power to other major currencies, boosting the power of traders holding those currencies to buy oil.