As of Monday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline has declined by one dime to $ 3.39. According to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), total national gasoline inventories declined slightly from 600,000 barrels to 211.4 million barrels last week.

In contrast, demand for gasoline rose from 9.24 million barrels per day to 9.33 million. In general, growing demand and tight supply would encourage higher prices at the pump, but recent fluctuations in the price of crude oil have helped stabilize and put downward pressure on prices. However, as long as the price of oil hovers around $ 80 a barrel, drivers should expect prices at the pump to remain high.

At the close of Wednesday’s formal trading session, WTI fell 11 cents to $ 78.39. Crude prices edged down today after the EIA’s weekly report found that the total domestic supply of crude rose 1 million barrels to 434 million barrels last week.

The price of crude rose $ 1.75 on Thursday to $ 78.50, although President Biden has announced that the federal government will make available up to 32 million barrels of oil held in the Strategic Reserve of US oil (SPR) and would speed up the sales schedule for another 18 million barrels of SPR oil, as mandated by Congress.

The effort should be coordinated with the release of oil from other major crude-consuming countries, including China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom, to help lower the price of crude. The release of SPR oil is expected to have a downward impact on prices at the pump. The magnitude of the impact on prices and the duration of the price relief will depend on the total amount of oil entering the market after coordinated releases around the world.

As a result, drivers could see some price relief at the pump in the coming weeks, but they should expect prices to remain higher than during the holiday season last year and into 2019.

AAA