VIRGINIA BEACH — After weeks of slowly marching lower, the national average for a gallon of gas reversed course, rising two cents since last week to $3.04, according to AAA.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s national average per kilowatt hour of electricity at a public EV charging station remained at 34 cents.
“We could be heading into a period of relative stability when it comes to pump prices,” said Ryan Adcock, AAA Tidewater spokesperson. “Despite some reports to the contrary, the national average never fell below $3 this year, and it might not as a record 119 million people are forecast to travel this holiday season. And 107 million will go by car, which is a lot of fueling up.”
According to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), gasoline demand rose slightly from 8.81 million barrels per day last week to 8.92 million. Meanwhile, total domestic gasoline stocks rose from 219.7 million barrels to 222 million, while gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.9 million barrels daily.
AAA noted the EIA has also tallied the impact of this year’s hurricane season and reports that unplanned outages of crude oil production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico due to storms averaged 295,000 barrels per day in September and 110,000 in November, accounting for 16% and 5%, respectively, of total crude oil production from federal Gulf of Mexico waters in those months. However, the impact at the pump was relatively muted as prices popped by a few pennies before resuming their seasonal decline, it added.
Today’s national average for a gallon of gas is $3.04, two cents less than a month ago and four cents less than a year ago.
Locally, the gas price average for the Commonwealth decreased to $2.88. Thursday’s price is three cents lower than a week ago and 11 cents lower than a month ago. In Hampton Roads, prices decreased two cents to $2.80, which is five cents lower than a month ago and 11 cents lower than a year ago.
