By Isabel Wang
Gasoline prices always rise in March and April as travelers hit the road and refiners switch to more expensive summer fuel.
Gasoline prices have increased across the country over the past week, and drivers who plan to leave town for spring break sometime over the next two months will likely see even higher prices.
The national average price of a gallon of gasoline rose to $3.338 on Thursday, its highest level of the year. It was 5.4 cents higher than a week ago and was up more than 20 cents in February compared to the previous month, according to data compiled by GasBuddy.
Prices as of Thursday afternoon were the highest in California, where drivers pay an average of $4,731 per gallon, followed by Washington and Nevada at $4,094 and $3,959, respectively. Other states that have an average retail gasoline price of more than $3.40 per gallon include Oregon, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to GasBuddy data.
The upward trend is likely to continue as travelers begin hitting the roads this spring, said AAA spokesperson Aixa Dรญaz.
"Historically, March and April bring higher gas prices as demand increases," he wrote in a news release Thursday. "With milder temperatures comes more road trips, and this time of year tends to be a precursor to the summer driving season."
Gas demand rose to 8.41 million barrels per day in the week ending February 23, up from 8.33 million barrels the previous week. Total domestic gasoline inventories decreased by 2.8 million barrels to 244.2 million barrels during the same period, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
See: Gasoline prices are rising, but a larger upward trend is expected later this month
The jump in prices at the pump comes even as oil prices have remained largely stable due to rising tensions in the Middle East over the past four months. But MarketWatch reported earlier this month that Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and a late January attack on U.S. troops in Jordan have raised the risk of an escalation that could hit oil supplies and exacerbate conflicts. delays in shipments, while raising prices for gasoline, a refined product made from crude oil.
For the month of February, the US crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate (CL00) (CL.1) recorded a monthly advance of 3.2%, while the global benchmark crude Brent (BRN00) rose 2.3% in the month, according to Dow Jones Market. Data. April WTI (CLJ24) closed at $78.26 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday, and April Brent crude (BRNK24) finished at $83.62 on ICE Futures Europe, according to FactSet data.
Some of this jump in gasoline prices is considered normal, as the market generally sees a seasonal trend of rising gasoline prices in March and April after bottoming in the winter, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis of the Oil Price Information Service. OPIS is an energy data and analytics provider that is part of News Corp's Dow Jones, publisher of MarketWatch.
March and April are two of the "most conducive months" for higher gasoline prices, because refineries must shift to making summer products before the May 1 compliance date, and some of them also increase their maintenance during this time of year, Kloza said.
Summer gasoline generally has a lower volatility than winter gasoline to limit evaporative emissions that typically increase with warm weather and cause unhealthy ground-level ozone, but is more expensive than winder-grade blend.
"If someone predicts that gas prices will go up 15 to 40 cents in the next 60 days, they're really just predicting what happens each year," Kloza told MarketWatch in a phone interview Thursday, adding that his research suggests that the market will not see a "hell-like increase" in gasoline prices this year.
-Isabel Wang
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02-29-24 1708ET
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