The U.S. retail gasoline price stopped dropping and turned upward by one cent in the past two weeks. The average price of regular grade is now $2.903.
It sits 29.2 cents per gallon below its year-ago point. Since early November, the last time the U.S. pump price rose, the price is down 25.6 cents per gallon. And since its 2025 high point in early April, the price is down 43.7 cents.
Wholesale gasoline prices rose an average 6.1 cents per gallon in the same period, but consumers did not pay that thanks to gasoline retailers taking it on the chin: Margin on regular grade gasoline dropped by 5.1 cents per gallon in the past two weeks. It is currently 35.2 cents per gallon, not too shabby despite the shrinkage.
From crude oil alone, simplistically, there are about four more cents unrealized: West Texas Intermediate's near month futures contract closing price rose by $1.95 per barrel during the two weeks, to $61.07 per barrel, the equivalent of 4.64 cents per gallon. So according to these shallow comparisons, a pump price uptick of about 4 to 5 cents in the near term would be reasonable.
Lundberg wholesale surveys conducted daily for all classes of trade nationally show unbranded rack up an average 8.86 cents per gallon in the past two weeks. It jumped 10.56 cents in the Gulf region and 16.32 cents in the West. The average unbranded price on Jan. 3 in Petroleum Administration for Defense Region 5 is 242.14 cents per gallon and the branded average rack price is 254.99 cent. Far more than that is certainly reasonable, too: To the expanded risk premium embedded in world oil prices we now have highlighted international competition for control over the Arctic region including Greenland, and the stand-off with Iran with thousands of Iranians killed in a government crackdown on protests over the economic crisis and with the supreme leader having just retreated underground in hiding.
Kazakhstan's cessation of most of its oil output added to the factors calling for strong oil prices, as have positive world economic indicators suggesting stronger oil demand.
But soothing oil supply jitters a bit is the fact of Venezuelan oil already arriving in the U.S., expectations that this year more pro-consumer developments will support stronger petroleum demand. There is plenty of gasoline, with another stocks build. Winter Storm Fern is suppressing demand even as it also threatens supply disruptions from oil production to product distribution. And, we remain in the year's lowest gasoline demand month, January.
Trilby Lundberg is publisher of the Lundberg Survey of U.S. fuel markets. Lundberg Survey Inc. is based in Camarillo, California.
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