NOTTINGHAM, MD—For the third straight week, the nation’s average gas price has fallen, declining 3.4 cents from a week ago and stands at $3.379 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 is up 2.8 cents from a month ago and $1.30 per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has fallen 0.5 cents in the last week and stands at $3.625 per gallon.

“Gas price declines are slowly picking up momentum. With oil’s recent fall and the jury out on a new COVID variant, Omicron, we could be in store for lower prices based on many countries turning back to travel restrictions, limiting oil demand and potentially accelerating the drop in gas prices,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. “There remains a very high level of uncertainty ahead of us as OPEC has also delayed its meetings to await more market movements and information on Omicron. But so far, Americans can expect the new variant to push gas prices even lower. Beyond the next few weeks, it remains nearly impossible to predict where oil and gas prices will head, though turbulence is guaranteed.”

The most common U.S. gas price encountered by motorists stood at $3.19 per gallon, unchanged from last week, followed by $3.29, $3.09, $2.99 and $3.39 rounding out the five most common prices. The average cost at the priciest 10% of stations stands at $4.40 per gallon, down 1 cent from a week ago, while the lowest 10% average $2.85 per gallon, down 3 cents from a week ago. The median U.S. price is $3.28 per gallon, a decline of 1 cent from last week and about 9 cents lower than the national average.
The states with the lowest average prices: Oklahoma ($2.90), Texas ($2.94) and Arkansas ($3.00). The states with the highest priced states: California ($4.69), Hawaii ($4.32) and Nevada ($3.94).

In the NottinghamMD.com coverage area, the cheapest gas as of Monday was located at BP (8809 Belair Road, 21236), with regular gas selling for $2.97 per gallon, unchanged from last week. Sam’s Club located at 6410 Petrie Way (21237) and Costco located at 9919 Pulaski Highway (21220) each check in at $3.08 for a gallon of regular gasoline, down slightly from last week.

Photo by Ingo Joseph from Pexels