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The
price of U.S. gasoline averaged more than $5 a gallon for the
first time ever on July 11, but since then prices have come
down, as overall supply has increased and U.S. demand has
moderated to some extent, in part due to higher rates.
The White House has tried a number of efforts to reduce prices,
including a release of 180 million barrels of oil from the
nation's strategic reserves designed to flood the market with
supply.
While that has worked partly, prices have remained somewhat
elevated due to tightness in refining capacity worldwide.
Retail prices follow the trend in wholesale gasoline futures,
which have been falling at a more accelerated rate than retail
prices.
As of Monday, wholesale U.S. gasoline futures were at $3.27 a
gallon, down from a high of $4.31 a gallon on June 3. That gap
between retail and wholesale prices is still larger than the
average, which augurs for lower prices at the pump in coming
weeks.
Even at the record of $5.02 a gallon reached in mid-June, prices
were still approximately 8% below the inflation-adjusted June
2008 highs around $5.41 a gallon, according to U.S. Energy
Department figures.
(Reporting by Eileen Soreng and Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru,
Editing by Louise Heavens, Kirsten Donovan)
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