U.S Gasoline Price Drops by $1.72 per Gallon

The latest survey reports that the average gasoline price in the United States has dropped by $1.72 per gallon.

The Lundberg survey gathered its data from December 7 to December 20 from around 2,500 pumping stations.

According to the Camarillo, California-based company, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline went down to $3.2618 per gallon. However, analysts are not expecting it to last.

Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey, told Bloomberg News in a telephone interview Sunday, “We shouldn’t expect this to continue. In the same two-week period, wholesale prices paid by jobbers, distributors and retailers have bobbed up more than 3 cents and may crawl up a bit more. Their margin on gasoline was slashed so they need to catch up by raising prices slightly.”

The highest gasoline price per gallon recorded was in Long Island, New York, which costs $3.62 per gallon, while the cheapest – amounting to $2.84 per gallon -- was in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The gasoline price is 0.4 cent higher than December 20, 2012.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), gasoline futures increased by 5.62 cents (2.1 percent) to $2.7831 per gallon in the couple of weeks ending last December 20.

Gasoline Stockpiles, on the other hand, increased by 1.34 million barrels to 220.5 million in the week that ended in December 13 – a fourth boost in the stockpile, said the Energy Information Administration, the statistical division of the Energy Department.

Furthermore, gas supplies are at its highest point since this August.

In the couple of weeks ended in Dec. 20, West Texas Intermediate crude ballooned by $1.67 (1.7 percent) to $99.32 per barrel on the NYMEX.

This is the second gasoline price drop reported by Lundberg survey for December.