U.S. Gasoline Prices Fall Below $4.50 Per Gallon

Gasoline prices in the United States fell below $4.50 per gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA, down 52 cents from the highest recorded average price reached last month. But gasoline prices are still higher today than before the announced release in March of a million barrels of crude oil per day from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

Commodity

Oil

Writer

IPG Staff2

U.S. gasoline prices fell to a national average of
$4.495 per gallon on Tuesday, AAA data showed. That’s down from an average of
$4.521 yesterday and down from $4.655 a week ago. Even larger is the monthly
change—a 48.8 cent drop. But overall, gasoline prices are still up markedly
over the last year—$1.325 more per gallon than this time last year.

The Biden Administration has been battling rising pump
prices since he took office, EIA gasoline pricing data shows, when national
gasoline prices were less than $2.50 per gallon. Gasoline prices continued
their steep climb until mid-June, after which pricing at the pump began to
ease.

Under the current administration’s watch, 79.4 million
barrels of crude oil has been released from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum
Reserves since March 30 in pursuit of boosting commercial inventories of crude
oil to lower gasoline prices. Tight global refinery capacity, supply chain
issues in the industry, and a lack of investment within the industry, however,
has confounded all efforts the Biden Administration has taken to lower
prices—which has included multiple attempts at getting OPEC+ to raise crude oil
production and accusations against oil companies and refineries of price
gouging.

For the week ending March 28, the week before
President Joe Biden announced that the government would release a million
barrels of oil per day from emergency stockpiles, gasoline prices were $4.231,
according to weekly EIA data—25.9 cents less than prices at the pump today.

By Julianne Geiger / Jul 19, 2022, 1:00 PM