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National Gasoline Prices Fall Below $3 Per Gallon
The U.S. national average price of gasoline has fallen below $3 per gallon for the first time in more than three and a half years. According to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 12 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country, the average national gasoline price was $2.97 per gallon on Monday, a level they last touched in 2021. De Haan has noted that some 35 U.S. states now enjoy average gas prices below $3 per gallon, an increase of seven states from a month ago.
“The national average has finally fallen below $3 per gallon, and it couldn’t come at a better time for motorists with the holidays upon us. One would need to count over 1,300 days since we’ve seen the national average this low, with the affordability of gasoline at its lowest non-COVID level since 2015,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
Oil is the primary factor that determines gasoline prices in the United States, and commodity experts at Standard Chartered have predicted that U.S. oil production will not surge under Trump. According to the experts, U.S. crude production has increased by 4.7 mb/d since the pandemic-era low of May 2020; however, it’s just 0.4 mb/d higher than the pre-pandemic high of November 2019, working out to an annual production growth rate of just 80 thousand barrels per day (kb/d) over this timeframe. Further, the growth clip is forecast to continue to slow down in the current year and in 2025. U.S. liquids supply increased by 1.605 mb/d in 2023, but StanChart has forecast growth of just 630 kb/d in 2024, slowing further to 300 kb/d in 2025.
With more than a month since U.S. President-elect Donald Trump won a second term in the Oval Office, oil markets have been struggling to find direction despite event risk remaining high, particularly in the Middle East. According to StanChart, the market’s apparent hesitation to trade a view with any conviction has intensified the notion that oil markets seem content to wait for Trump to take office.
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