Gasoline prices are on track to reach a national average of $4 a gallon next year — just in time for the summer driving season, according to a new forecast.
Consumers will get walloped just as school lets out and families take to the road, predicts GasBuddy, an app that tracks fuel prices and energy demand.
“We could see a national average that flirts with, or in a worst-case scenario, potentially exceeds $4 a gallon,” Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, told CNN, which first reported the eye-popping price.
The forecast runs counter to the current trend in which gasoline prices have been coming down, reaching a national average of $3.29 a gallon on Monday, down 13 cents from the peak of $3.42 on Nov. 8, according to AAA.
Prices will rise again in 2022, GasBuddy contends, because several major refineries in Louisiana and Texas are down and demand is soaring, creating a perfect storm in which already strained supplies will be stretched further. Refinery capacity fell to a six-year low in 2021.
