NOTTINGHAM, MD—For the fifth consecutive week, the nation’s average gas price has fallen, declining 2.4 cents from a week ago and stands at $3.32 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 9.0 cents from a month ago and $1.18 per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has fallen 0.2 cents in the last week and stands at $3.605 per gallon.

“With the price of crude oil remaining some $13 per barrel below its 2021 peak, we have continued to see gas prices decline in nearly every city coast to coast, a trend that will likely continue into yet another week,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. “Omicron concerns continue to be the primary catalyst for the drop in gas prices across much of the country. While we’ve seen some anecdotal reports about the new variant, vaccine producers have yet to definitively state if current vaccines will still bring adequate protection against omicron- something that might be critical to limit severity and to avoid new shutdowns. With OPEC+ members still planning to boost oil production in January, we continue to see global oil production slowly rising. In addition, U.S. gasoline demand last week fell to the lowest level since October, which may limit oil’s recent rebound and keep gas prices declining through the end of the year.”

The most common U.S. gas price encountered by motorists stood at $2.99 per gallon, down 20 cents from last week, followed by $3.19, $3.09, $3.29 and $3.39 rounding out the five most common prices. The average cost at the priciest 10% of stations stands at $4.42 per gallon, unchanged from a week ago, while the lowest 10% average $2.76 per gallon, down 4 cents from a week ago. The median U.S. price is $3.19 per gallon, a decline of 4 cents from last week and about 13 cents lower than the national average. The states with the lowest average prices: Oklahoma ($2.85), Texas ($2.86) and Arkansas ($2.92). The states with the highest priced states: California ($4.66), Hawaii ($4.29) and Washington ($3.86).

In the NottinghamMD.com coverage area, the cheapest gas as of Monday could be found at Sam’s Club located at 6410 Petrie Way (21237) and at Costco located at 9919 Pulaski Highway (21220), each checking in with a price of $2.95 per gallon of regular gas.  BJ’s located at 4201 Wholesale Club Drive (21236) checks in at $2.96 per gallon while the BP located at 8809 Belair Road (21236) checks in at $2.97 per gallon.

Photo by Ingo Joseph from Pexels