The biggest one-week surge in gas prices on record showed no signs of easing Tuesday as average pump prices hit an all-time high of $4.104 gallon across the U.S.
U.S. gasoline prices are set for another day of record highs Tuesday as crude prices push higher amid plans for a U.S.-lead boycott of Russian crude exports.
The White House has indicated that it may go it alone in shunning the 5 million to 7 million barrels of Russian crude sold on global markets each day – although that figure represents on a small total of overall U.S. imports.
In fact, a Congressional bill that would ban energy imports from Russia, while repealing normal trade relations with Moscow and neighboring Belarus, could come to the floor as early as today.
In the meantime, OPEC’s reluctance to increase monthly production rates from its cartel members, the lowest levels of domestic crude supplies in more than two years and a threat from Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister to shut off gas supplies to western Europe have all carried crude prices to the highest levels in more than a decade.
WTI futures for April delivery were marked $3.51 higher at $122.91 per barrel in early New York trading while Brent contracts for May surged $4.11 to $127.31 per barrel.
At the pumps, the average cost for a gallon of gas hit an all-time high of $4.104 yesterday, according to the consumer website Gasbuddy.com, topping the $4.103 level set during the peak of the global financial crisis in 2008. The national average based on American Automobile Association data was a record high $4.17 per gallon, including a $5.34 average in the state of California.
The seven-day price spike of 49.1 cents per gallon also set records, according to Gasbuddy data, surpassing the 49 cent surge triggered by the supply shock that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“Americans have never seen gasoline prices this high, nor have we seen the pace of increases so fast and furious,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “It’s a dire situation and won’t improve any time soon. The high prices are likely to stick around for not days or weeks, like they did in 2008, but months.”
Consumers looking for near-term relief from OPEC leaders will likely be disappointed by the cartel’s insistence that its policies have little or no impact on the current crude price surge.
The group, which trimmed collective production rates in the spring of 2020 following a the pandemic-triggered collapse in global demand, has been only gradually unwinding its production cuts since, noting last week that “Current oil market fundamentals and the “consensus outlook … pointed to a well-balanced market, and that current volatility is not caused by changes in market fundamentals but by current geopolitical developments.”
