Gasoline Prices Fall to Lowest Since February
Gasoline prices at U.S. pumps, already at a seven-month low, may extend their decline amid falling crude costs that are spurring oil refineries to increase production of the road fuel, according to Lundberg Survey Inc.
The average price of regular gasoline slid 8.9 cents in the two weeks ended Sept. 19 to $3.374 a gallon, the lowest since Feb. 7, according to the survey, which is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations. Prices are 14.66 cents lower than a year ago and may drop by a few more cents, the Camarillo, California-based researcher said.
“In this period, oil prices did migrate a little further South,” Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey, said in a telephone interview. “Plus, U.S. refiners slashed their wholesale gasoline prices and were aided in this by lower cost winter blend formulations affecting most of the country and a crash in ethanol prices.”
Retail gasoline is the lowest for the time of year since 2010 as refiners take advantage of cheap, domestic crude to run at the highest rates in eight years. U.S. crude prices slid by more than $10 a barrel since reaching this year’s peak in June.
“Lower crude oil prices have been the main input over these 13 weeks of pump price-cutting,” Lundberg said. “However, in the latest two weeks, the crude oil price declines were not as dramatic as it had been.”
The highest price for gasoline in the lower 48 states among the markets surveyed was in San Francisco, at $3.79 a gallon, Lundberg said. The lowest was in Jackson, Mississippi, where customers paid an average $3.03 a gallon. Regular gasoline averaged $3.58 a gallon on Long Island, New York, and $3.70 in Los Angeles.
Refineries processed 16.3 million barrels of oil a day in the week ended Sept. 12, a seasonal record in Energy Information Administration records dating back to 1989. Refinery inputs reached an all-time high of 16.6 million barrels a day in July. Plants ran at 93% of capacity, the most for this time of year since 2006.
Refiners are taking advantage of booming oil production from U.S. shale formations that’s expected to increase domestic crude output in 2015 to the most in 45 years.
Gasoline stockpiles fell 1.64 million barrels, or 0.8%, in the seven days ended Sept. 12 to 210.7 million, EIA data show. Demand over the four weeks ended Sept. 12 slipped 0.2% to 8.98 million barrels a day, the lowest since July.
