The average national price per gallon of ordinary gas was $ 3.84 per gallon on Friday, according to the AAA. This is the highest price since September 2012 and 11 cents higher than Thursday.
Gas prices have jumped 18 cents since Wednesday and 29 cents since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine eight days ago. Each of these increases marks the biggest rise in prices since Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf coast in 2005, devastating the national oil and gas industry, according to the Oil Price Information Service, which collects data from 140,000 gas stations in the United States. nationwide for average AAA prices.
“This is not the end. We already have another 14 cents on wholesale gas prices this morning,” Tom Klose, global head of energy analysis, told OPIS. He said the increase in wholesale gas prices is likely to be passed on to consumers in the short term.
“It’s completely out of control,” he said.
The average price a year ago was $ 2.75 a gallon, as prices were still recovering from the drop in the pandemic. Home stay orders and business shutdowns have reduced the demand for petrol.
The average household uses about 90 gallons a month, Klose said, so a $ 1.09 increase in gas prices costs that household about $ 98 a month, or just under $ 1,200 a year.
Klose said he could see the average price rise to a new record of $ 4.25 to $ 4.50 a gallon. He said the rapid rise in gas prices made a particularly strong impression on society compared to the slow but steady rise in prices.
“When you get increases so quickly and so dramatically, you’re really scaring the public,” he said.
The average state for California jumped 13 cents overnight to $ 5.07 a gallon, making it the first state to ever average more than $ 5 a gallon.
There are now nine states – California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, where the average price is already over $ 4 per gallon, with New York and Pennsylvania crossing the $ 4 mark with the latest report.
Two other states, Arizona and Connecticut, as well as Washington, are just pennies away from this $ 4 average.
The average price per gallon of diesel is now $ 4.26 per gallon. It reached $ 4 last weekend. While relatively few American cars use diesel, almost all large trucks depend on it. And most truck companies have a fuel tax schedule that is based on average prices, which means that the cost of transporting almost all goods increases for businesses, an increase in costs that is also likely to be passed on to consumers in the form of at higher prices. Sanctions imposed on the Russian economy since its invasion of Ukraine have so far exempted Russian oil exports. But traders are reluctant to buy Russian oil because of uncertainty about the possibility of closing the deal with Russian banking sector limits, as well as fears of finding oil tankers ready to turn to Russian ports to load any oil they buy.