At the same time, U.S. gasoline consumption is back down to 2002 levels because of more fuel-efficient cars and the tepid economy. It isn’t expected to rise this year or next, according to the Energy Department.
That means the U.S. will need to import less oil, which will increase global supplies and help tamp down prices somewhat.
The current average retail price of gasoline is $3.31 per gallon, 6 cents lower than last year, according to AAA, OPIS and Wright Express. AAA predicts gas won’t surpass $3.80 a gallon this year.
The peak last year was $3.94, reached in April. The auto club also says average pump prices could drop as low as $3.20, a level that the country hasn’t seen since February 2011.
Tom Kloza of OPIS expects price differences between regions of the country will remain large, and local prices could be volatile as supplies build and dwindle. In Utah, drivers are paying $2.88 per gallon on average, while in New York drivers are paying $3.75. Just in the last four months, gasoline supplies on the West Coast fell to their lowest level in a generation, then rose to where they are now, their highest level in a generation.
AAA forecasts the national average will peak between $3.60 and $3.80 in the spring, then drop to between $3.20 and $3.40 by mid-summer. It will rise again during the hurricane season along the Gulf Coast, the nation’s oil-refining hub, before moving lower toward the end of the year.
It’s that up-and-down movement that will dictate drivers’ moods. Drivers tend to remember what they paid for their last fill-up – not that they may have paid a little less a year ago, Hamilton said.
“People have a short reference point,” he said.
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