As if something was missing to continue driving rising inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has come to put pressure on the price of gasoline. According to AAA the price on Thursday was $3,54 per gallon and for Friday $3.57 dollars.
And that’s not all, because as the days go by, gasoline is expected to reach $4 a gallon, since oil futures are already more than $100 dollars a barrel for benchmark Brent crude for the first time since 2014.
Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, told CNN the jump in wholesale gas prices is likely to be passed on to consumers at the pump within days.
For the analyst firm that tracks gas data for AAA , distributors and retailers will look to fill up today by paying $3 for wholesale gas, “but are worried about paying $4 a gallon next time.”
Kloza told CNN the national average could reach $4 a gallon. $4 per gallon mid sea zo, which would mean the first time that gasoline has reached such a high level since the summer of 2008, when prices reached a record average of $4,11 per gallon.
However, the analyst expects that record to drop between mid-April and Memorial Day .
Kloza explained that it is not that Russian oil or gasoline constitutes an important part of US supplies, since the latest data for November showed that Russia contributed less than 4% of US demand, but Europe uses a lot of Russian oil and gasoline.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is just one of the reasons why gasoline prices are headed for record levels. Strong demand for gas, which was rising along with the reversal of Omicron’s surge in covid cases, is outstripping supply for several reasons.
CNN reports that on the West Coast, prices Gasoline prices were already near or above $4 as several refineries closed or converted to process renewable fuels in recent years, reducing the region’s refining capacity by more than 20 % compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The RBC bank noted that even without the current crisis, the national average price of gasoline was likely to reach $4 per gallon: “Prices are usually increase about 45 cents per gallon between mid-February and early June”.
For Kloza some parts of the country with relatively low gas prices could avoid the $4 averages, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansa s, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Mississippi, which had average prices on Thursday of $3.45 or less.
But some areas are already paying close to $4 a gallon. On Thursday, Oregon, California and Hawaii were already at that mark, and Washington and Nevada are also cents shy of surpassing it.
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