NOTTINGHAM, MD—For the fourth straight week, the nation’s average gas price has fallen, declining 5.3 cents from a week ago and stands at $3.34 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 down 6.9 cents from a month ago and $1.19 per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has fallen 1.8 cents in the last week and stands at $3.607 per gallon.

“The downturn in average gas prices continued to gain momentum last week as oil prices remained at a hefty discount. This is largely due to continued anxiety over the omicron variant and because some countries have begun issuing lockdowns, keeping motorists in some countries from consuming as much fuel,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. “While the Great Lakes region, the fastest to see prices respond to market fluctuations, is seeing hefty monthly declines approaching 30 cents per gallon, much of the rest of the country is lagging behind. But, we will see precipitous declines in the next week or two as stations continue to sell through higher priced inventory before slowly lowering their prices. It’s not impossible given the conditions that price wars, where stations lower their price significantly, could emerge as stations now have considerable room to lower prices.”

The most common U.S. gas price encountered by motorists stood at $3.19 per gallon, unchanged from last week, followed by $2.99, $3.29, $3.09 and $3.49 rounding out the five most common prices. The average cost at the priciest 10% of stations stands at $4.42 per gallon, up 2 cents from a week ago, while the lowest 10% average $2.80 per gallon, down 5 cents from a week ago. The median U.S. price is $3.23 per gallon, a decline of 5 cents from last week and about 11 cents lower than the national average.
The states with the lowest average prices: Oklahoma ($2.89), Texas ($2.92) and Arkansas ($2.95). 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) checks in at $3.00 per gallon, down $0.08 from last week, while Costco located at 9919 Pulaski Highway (21220) checks in at $3.02 for a gallon of regular gasoline, down $0.06 from last week.

Photo by Ingo Joseph from Pexels