U.S. Gasoline Falls to $2.9421/Gallon in Lundberg Survey

By Jessica Summers and Dan Murtaugh  

Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

The highest price for gasoline in the lower 48 states among the markets surveyed was in... Read More

The average price of regular gasoline at U.S. pumps dropped 13.38 cents to $2.9421 a gallon in the two weeks ended Nov. 7, falling below $3 for the first time in almost four years, Lundberg Survey Inc. said.
Prices are 27.55 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, California-based company.
The average is the lowest since Dec. 3, 2010, down 78.04 cents a gallon from the May 2 peak of $3.7225, said Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey. She said it was the first average less than $3 a gallon since Dec. 17, 2010.
“Crude oil price slippage again has
pulled gasoline prices down, but we are coming to the end of this downhill ride,” Lundberg said in a telephone interview yesterday.
The highest price for gasoline in the lower 48 states among the markets surveyed was in San Francisco, at $3.27 a gallon, Lundberg said. The lowest price was in Memphis, Tennessee, where customers paid an average of $2.65 a gallon. Regular gasoline averaged $3.21 a gallon on Long Island, New York, and $3.20 in Los Angeles.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark priced in Cushing, Oklahoma, declined $2.36, or 2.9 percent, to $78.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the two weeks to Nov. 7.

World Demand

Global demand for crude from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is responsible for about 40 percent of the world’s oil supply, may fall to a 14-year low of 28.2 million barrels a day in 2017, its outlook showed. That’s 600,000 a day fewer than last year’s projection and 800,000 below the amount required this year.
U.S. oil output increased to 8.972 million barrels a day the week of Oct. 31, the most since at least 1983, according to Energy Information Administration data. U.S. production has increased about 66 percent in the past five years as companies used horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to tap into hydrocarbon-rich layers of underground shale rock.
Refineries processed 15.5 million barrels of oil a day in the week ended Oct. 31, the highest level for the time of year since 2003.
Gasoline stockpiles shrank by 1.4 million barrels to 201.8 million, EIA data show.
Gasoline futures on the Nymex fell 4.65 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $2.1352 a gallon in the two weeks ended Nov. 7.