*Note: Memorial Day on May 28, 2018. Report release May 29, 2019.

Fort Lauderdale, FL – The unofficial start of the summer driving season kicked off with an official increase in gas prices, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, pushing prices to within pennies of the $3.00 threshold. The national average price of a gallon of regular unleaded jumped another four cents, week on week, to settle at $2.96, according to the weekly E.I.A. fuel price survey. That price is 49-cents higher than where prices were just five months ago, on Christmas Day, and represents nearly a twenty-percent increase in fuel prices since the start of the year, according to E.I.A. price surveys. Prices went up in all regions, though some were hit much harder than others, by the survey data. Prices were up nearly seven cents per gallon across the Lower Atlantic, while prices in the Rocky Mountain states were up by just over two cents per gallon. California, where prices are among the highest in the nation, this week’s two-cent price hike pushed costs to $3.64 per gallon. Truckers, on average, are paying about $4.00 per gallon in California, though the national average price for diesel is much lower. Still, truckers in nearly all regions felt another price hike at the pump this week, as the national average price of diesel went up about a penny per gallon to near $3.29.
This week’s average fuel prices for all regions are shown below, as gathered from www.eia.gov.
E.I.A. Gas Price Survey
E.I.A. Diesel Price Survey
*PADD stands for Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts. Charts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/