ND1207114

Title: Gasoline Price Falls, U.S. Stockpiles Rise

Description: The average cost for regular gasoline dropped nearly 9 cents while stockpiles of gasoline jumped to its highest level in eight weeks.

Page Content: CAMARILLO, Calif. ? U.S. regular gasoline prices decreased 8.89 cents to reach $3.2918 per gallon on average, according to the Lundberg Survey, Bloomberg reports. The price is from a two-week period ending Dec. 2.

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?Poor gasoline demand caused by severe unemployment has produced this price drop at the pump,? said Trilby Lundberg, president of Lundberg Survey.

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Crude oil prices are expected to fall this week based on conjecture that the economy isn?t recovered sufficiently to keep oil prices at $100-a-barrel level. Forty-six percent of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News predicted that oil prices will drop through the end of this week.

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U.S. stockpiles of gasoline jumped to 213,000 barrels in the period that ended Nov. 25 to reach 209.8 million barrels, the highest level in a two-month period, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The Thanksgiving holiday boosted gasoline demand 3% over the week before the holiday (including Nov. 25), according to the SpendingPulse report by MasterCard Inc.

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Gasoline consumption dropped under last year?s levels at the same time for the 13th consecutive week, falling 3.8%. Overall, averaging four weeks, demand slid 4.1%, the 36th straight decrease in that measure.

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San Francisco registered the highest price in the lower 48 U.S. states with an average price of $3.67 a gallon, while Albuquerque had the lowest with $2.84 per gallon, according to Lundberg.

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Some analysts predicted last month that gasoline prices could jump significantly higher in 2012.

Content Subject: Petroleum Retailing

Formatted Article Date: December 7, 2011

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