Bloomberg U.S. Gasoline Price Rises to $2.3010 a Gallon

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- The average price of regular gasoline at U.S. filling stations rose to $2.3010 a gallon as refiners cut production and inventories fell to the lowest since December.

Regular gasoline climbed 24.61 cents in the three weeks ended May 15, according to a survey of 5,000 filling stations nationwide by Trilby Lundberg, an independent gasoline analyst. That’s an average 8.2 cents more a week, the biggest increase on that basis in a year.

“Between our two survey dates this year, crude oil prices increased nearly $5 a barrel,” Lundberg said today in an interview. Gasoline consumption “always jumps significantly in the spring and plateaus out in the three months of June, July and August. Even in a poor demand year, this adds greatly to seasonal demand.”

Also boosting prices are seasonal government rules about gasoline formulations, she said. This year, they include requirements to blend in more ethanol and are therefore affected by rising ethanol prices, she said.

Stockpiles fell 4.2 million barrels during the week ended May 8 to 208.3 million, the lowest since Dec. 26 and 0.9 percent below a year earlier, the Energy Department reported May 13. Refineries operated at 83.7 percent of capacity, down 1.6 percentage points from the prior week.

AAA, the nation’s biggest motoring club, said today that regular gasoline at the pump averaged $2.308 a gallon, down 44 percent from the record $4.11 in July.

Gasoline for June delivery fell 4.31 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $1.6806 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange on May 15. The futures surged 67 percent this year, the most of any commodity, after refiners including Valero Energy Corp. and Total SA shut plants in response to the slowing economy.

Summer Driving

Daily demand for gasoline in the U.S. was 8.91 million barrels a day in the week ended May 8, down 12,000 barrels from the prior week and the lowest since the period ended Feb. 13. Consumption over the past four weeks was down 1.2 percent from a year earlier.

U.S. refiners typically ramp up gasoline output in April and May to prepare for the higher-demand summer driving season in North America.

Crude oil for June delivery on the Nymex dropped $2.28, or 3.9 percent, to settle at $56.34 a barrel on May 15. Oil accounted for about 55 percent of gasoline’s pump price in March, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

The highest average price for self-serve regular gasoline in the U.S. was $2.63 a gallon in Chicago, Lundberg said. The lowest was in Phoenix at $1.99 a gallon. On New York’s Long Island, the price was $2.44 a gallon and in Los Angeles, the largest U.S. gasoline market, it was $2.47.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net