Gasoline Price Drop Continues as Costs at the Pump Slide 6 Cents Nationwide

The average gasoline price nationwide for all grades tumbled more than 6 cents in two weeks, continuing a slide in pump prices that began last month, an industry analyst said Sunday.

The average retail price for all three grades dropped 6.37 cents to $2.18 a gallon from May 6 to Friday, said Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country.

The most popular grade, self-serve regular, was $2.15 a gallon, and customers paid $2.25 for mid-grade. Premium averaged $2.35 a gallon for the period.

Average gasoline prices surged 49 cents a gallon from Jan. 1 to April 8, when prices began to drop as a result of several factors including an increased supply of both crude oil and gasoline and the completion of some maintenance projects that had reduced capacity at the nation’s refineries.

Oil prices began skyrocketing in March, hitting a new peak of $57.27 a barrel at the beginning of April. Prices have since receded and now hover above $47 a barrel.

The cost of the crude oil that goes into a gallon of gasoline makes up about 44% of the U.S. retail price, according to the Energy Department’s statistical arm.

“Chances are gasoline prices will continue to slip in the near future,” Lundberg told Bloomberg News. Refineries are returning from their spring maintenance and ramping up production for the peak summer driving season, which begins with the long Memorial Day holiday weekend. “There is more supply from refineries now.”

Refineries boosted the rate at which they are running by 2.2 percentage points to 94% of capacity in the week ended May 13, the highest since January, the U.S. Energy Department said Wednesday in a weekly report.

The highest average gas price in the nation for regular among the stations surveyed was $2.51 a gallon in San Francisco. The lowest price was $1.94 in Jackson, Miss.

The lowest average price among stations surveyed in California for regular was found in Bakersfield, where motorists were paying $2.37 a gallon.

Lundberg surveys the price of regular gasoline every two weeks. Before this year, the highest price in her survey was $2.07 a gallon on May 21, 2004.