Refineries across the nation ran at nearly 94 percent
Retail gasoline fell after crude oil prices dropped below $50 for the first time since 2009 as OPEC members said they wouldn't reduce output to bolster prices that have dropped by more than half since June. U.S. stockpiles of gasoline at 237 million barrels were the highest since 2011 in the week ended Jan. 2, according to government data. Refineries across the nation ran at nearly 94 percent of operable capacity.
"The prime mover for gasoline prices was lower crude oil," Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey, said in a telephone interview. "We also have swollen supplies and refinery utilization rates are very high."
Gasoline at the pump is at the lowest since April 2009, when prices were $2.0549 a gallon, Lundberg said. Over the last five years, prices averaged $3.17 a gallon in early January.
The highest price for gasoline in the lower 48 states among the markets surveyed was in San Francisco at $2.66 a gallon, Lundberg said. The lowest price was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where customers paid an average $1.76 a gallon. Regular gasoline averaged $2.54 a gallon on Long Island, New York, and $2.59 in Los Angeles.