BALTIMORE, MD—For the first time in 9 weeks, the national average price of gasoline has fallen, posting a 2.1 cent per gallon decline from a week ago to $3.05 per gallon on Monday, according to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 11 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average now stands 2.0 cents higher than a month ago and 93.5 cents higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has risen 0.3 cents in the last week and stands at $3.21 per gallon.

“The ferocious rise in gas prices has finally started to cool as gas prices have eased across a majority of the country for the first time in months,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. “There have been some challenges in pockets across the country as demand remains very healthy, and stations in some areas where demand is very high struggle to keep up thanks to the truck driver shortage. As we head toward the July 4 holiday, I’m optimistic that we’ll continue to see prices slowly drift lower before possibly rising in later July or August should we see any disruptions from hurricane season. But for now it seems most Americans are simply happy to be getting outside and back to some sense of normal.”

According to a new dataset being released by GasBuddy, weekly U.S. gasoline demand set another fresh Covid high, rising for the fifth straight week. Nationally, weekly gasoline demand rose 2.9%.

The most common U.S. gas price encountered by motorists was $2.89 per gallon, unchanged from last week, followed by $2.99, $2.79 and $3.09.
The average cost at the priciest 10% of stations stands at $4.05 per gallon, unchanged from a week ago, while the lowest 10% average $2.60 per gallon, down two cents from a week ago.  The median U.S. price is $2.94 per gallon, down a penny from last week and about 11 cents lower than the national average.  The states with the lowest average prices: Louisiana ($2.69), Mississippi ($2.69) and Oklahoma ($2.70).  The states with the highest priced states: California ($4.21), Hawaii ($3.90) and Nevada ($3.67).

In the NottinghamMD.com coverage area, the cheapest gas as of Monday morning was located at Costco (9919 Pulaski Highway) and at Sam’s Club (6410 Petrie Way). The price per gallon for regular gas was $2.69 at each location. No Nottingham-area stations were listed on this week’s “most expensive” list.

Photo by Ingo Joseph from Pexels