Gasoline prices at the pump are at more than a year's low, but this may change in the coming months, according to the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, Patrick DeHaan, as quoted by MarketWatch.
DeHaan said that right now, the average price per gallon of gasoline in the United States was at the lowest for the start of a year since 2016, when the metric was also falling sharply to end up at a low of US$1.66 per gallon. "Americans are spending $260 million less on gasoline today than they did some 80 days ago," the analyst said.
This won't last, however, if DeHaan is correct. "While the bargain basement gas prices we've been seeing in areas across the country have been terrific and most welcomed, the party at the pump will likely wrap up in the next month or two, and prices will begin to rally as OPEC production cuts and a strong U.S. economy push gas prices back up."
When it comes to prices at the pump, the situation is often the most basic example of how fundamentals work: demand improves with low prices and these start climbing back up, especially if there is support from the larger economy that stimulates more consumer spending. Then, when prices get to be too high, demand starts slowing and prices begin falling.
As a result of the interplay among these factors, GasBuddy expects the average price of gasoline for 2019 to be US$2.70 per gallon. That's up from an average of US$2.23. However, the company also expects price ranges reaching a high of US$3.22 per gallon in May and August.
GasBuddy also estimated the average household spending on gasoline to decline to US$1,991 this year from US$2,016 in 2018. This, however, will be higher than the average US$1,765 annual gas bill per household in 2017.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More
Comments
What you need is; to investigate the end user retail gas station owner's and find out why consumer's wait so long to get a break at the pumps when prices of crude are on a decline,, and yet spike immediately on the slightest whisper of an Increase!
I for one, live between two refineries seperated by about 50 miles in oil rich Midland, Texas, our average price per gallon at HEB, our best grocery store, is still above $2.27 a gal,,, if a person has too,, there are a bunch still charging $3.36 a gal in the area.
Supply and demand? I tell ya the truth, these are The greediest bunch of thieves at the Den of thieves!
If you want to push everyone into a Tesla and private solar /wind generation,, keep it up. It's more affordable and more stable then this energy market!
With the new requirements for the shipping industry to upgrade their fuel quality to higher grade
diesel the refineries are going to have to provide increased volumes of diesel for the shipping industry. It is my understanding that gasoline is a form of byproduct of manufacturing diesel so the gas market will be saturated while manufacturing all the extra diesel fuel. Also there is at
least one pipeline coming online in the southwest us in 2019 and another in 2020 to bring more
oil to the refineries. I will wait and see if prices go up as stated in the article, or if I will be reading
articles about petroleum industry execs drowning in gasoline. We will see,