The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose in the last three weeks but is expected to fall again, as a decline in the price of crude oil trickles down to the pump, an industry analyst said on Sunday.
The national average for self-serve, regular unleaded gas was $2.7722 a gallon on August 13, up 3.86 cents from July 23, according to the nation-wide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations.
This was well below the August 11, 2006, all-time high of $3.03, and 12.80 cents higher than the $2.6442 a year earlier.
Initially trading within a $72 to $80 per-barrel price band, the average price for crude broke out of the range for the second week to trade between $81 and $82.50 per barrel. But last week, those prices settled back to about $75 to $78 per barrel.
But at the pump, prices still reflected crude's price jump and had yet to fully factor in the drop in crude prices last week. The United States is facing gasoline glut as demand has been seriously hobbled by the weak economy and especially by high unemployment, Lundberg said.