If your wallet or purse is feeling the pain of paying a lot of money simply to fill your motor vehicle with gasoline, you are not alone, as the national average price for a gallon of gasoline is at an all-time record high level in the United States — to the point where none of the 50 states have an average price below $4.00 per gallon of gasoline, which is a milestone that has never happened in the United States until now.
National Average Gasoline Price is At Record High Level in the United States
Factors which have converged and have been cited to contributing to fuel prices substantially rising in the United States include the hostile invasion of Ukraine by armed military forces of Russia, significant inflation, the 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic, increased demand for fuel as the start of the summer driving season nears, and the switch to summer blend gasoline from the winter version of the fuel — all of which propelled the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States at a new all-time record level of $4.567, according to data from the American Automobile Association…
…but another factor is the decrease of the inventories of both gasoline and crude oil. According to data of the weekly petroleum status report from the Energy Information Administration of the United States ending as of Friday, May 13, 2022, crude oil inventories decreased by 3.4 million barrels to a total of 420.8 million barrels, which is 65.2 million barrels — or 13.4 percent — below the inventory at this time last year; and it is approximately 14 percent below the five-year average for this time of year.
Moreover, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve decreased by five million barrels from the prior week to 538 million barrels — which is approximately 14.6 percent below the level at this time one year ago.
Inventories of gasoline also decreased by 4.8 million barrels to a total of 220.2 million barrels, which is 14.0 million barrels — or six percent — lower than the inventory at this time one year ago; and it is approximately eight percent below the five-year average for this time of year.
Things could be worse: the price for a gallon of gasoline is $10.966 per gallon in Hong Kong, which is currently the most expensive price per gallon in the world.
This is the reason our gas prices are high. Corporate greed. pic.twitter.com/kLc9AMY3Mb
— Danielle Candela (@DanielleCandela) May 18, 2022
One other factor which has been circulating in social media is that mere corporate greed in the oil companies is also to blame for high fuel prices.
Final Boarding Call
I have felt the financial pain at the gasoline pump myself: filling the tank of this 2022 Ford Edge — which I have not only rented but also spent the night in it because of a disgusting hotel property — cost approximately $62.00, which is the first time in my life I ever paid that much for one tank of fuel…
…and that occurred in Georgia, which is one of the states in the United States with the least expensive fuel primarily due to the tax on gasoline being temporarily suspended by Brian P. Kemp, who is the current governor of that state.
Unfortunately, what is occurring is the simple theory of supply and demand — and with regard to gasoline and other types of fuel, demand has increased substantially while supply has simultaneously decreased significantly.
Until this imbalance is somehow corrected — either by an increase in the supply of fuel or a decrease in demand or a combination thereof — expect the price of a gallon of gasoline to remain high for the foreseeable future…
…or even perhaps increase more, as reports speculate that the national average price for a gallon of gasoline could exceed six dollars by August of 2022…
All photographs ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
