US Gasoline Falls in Lundberg Survey
The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps dropped 1.54 cents in the two weeks ended Sept. 5 to $3.46 a gallon, according to Lundberg Survey Inc.
Prices are 12.16 cents lower than a year ago, according to the survey, which is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, Calif.-based company.
In the last two weeks, crude oil price declines were comparatively small, meaning this may be the end of the crude oil-driven retail price reductions, according to Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey.
"That doesn't mean necessarily that we won't have some further price-cutting on the street," Lundberg said in a telephone interview Sept. 7. "That is possible as a near-term event because refiners will, from here, in most of the country, be able to shift to the less-expensive winter blends of gasoline and that may allow for continued wholesale and retail gasoline price-cutting."
The highest price for gasoline in the lower 48 states among the markets surveyed was in San Francisco, at $3.88 a gallon, Lundberg said. The lowest price was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where customers paid an average $3.11 a gallon. Regular gasoline averaged $3.64 a gallon on Long Island, New York, and $3.76 in Los Angeles.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark priced in Cushing, Oklahoma, fell 36 cents, or 0.4%, to $93.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the two weeks to Sept. 5.
Refineries processed 16.43 million barrels a day in the week ended Aug. 29, the highest level for the end of August in Energy Information Administration (EIA) records dating back to 1989. Refinery inputs reached a record 16.63 million barrels a day the week of July 11.
Plants are taking advantage of the U.S. shale boom, which has raised oil production 63% in the past five years. The increased output has pushed the settlement price of U.S. benchmark WTI futures below European Brent every day since Aug. 17, 2010.
Gasoline futures on the Nymex slipped 15.5 cents, or 5.7%, to $2.5834 a gallon in the two weeks ended Sept. 5, as the front-month contract switched from September to October. That marks the change between less-volatile and more-expensive summer gasoline to winter gasoline.
Gasoline stockpiles fell by 2.32 million barrels to 210 million, EIA data show. Demand over the four weeks ended Aug. 29 was 9.069 million barrels a day.
