If you haven’t noticed, prices at the pump are falling and at least one senior adviser in the Joe Biden administration celebrates that this is likely just the beginning.
Indeed, White House senior adviser for energy security Amos Hochstein expects the price to drop as low as $4 soon, with many gas stations across the nation that have already dipped below $4.
As of Monday, the average price for a gallon of gas across the country was $4.521, according to AAA. They follow-up by noting that prices should continue to drop In the United States as both demand and crude-oil prices decline.
Of course, it was just over a month ago—June 14th to be exact—when gas prices reached an all-time high of $5.016, with crude prices soaring on the heels of energy sanctions on Russia from the Western bloc. Bottlenecked productivity and distribution at US refineries certainly complicated this matter but things seem to be settling down again..
Hochner praises, “This is the fastest decline rate that we’ve seen against a major increase in oil prices during a war in Europe, where one of the parties in the war is the third largest producer in the world. So these are extraordinary circumstances.”
At the same time, fuel tends to be pretty volatile, and with the lifting of some pandemic measures coinciding with the summer travel season, we could easily see these prices shift greatly in either direction. Much of this depends not just on demand but also on supply.
Accordingly, Hochner assures us that the administration is doing what it can to stay ahead of the issues. For one, without going into great detail, he explains there is definitely some spare capacity in the oil-producing regions. Enough spare capacity, inf act, that Hochner is confident there is still some room to increase production.
He comments, “As we’ve told producers in the United States, we’ve had conversations over the last several months and weeks, with OPEC. And I believe that there is still more room too, to seee additional steps.”
