(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) After driving past the $6 mark for a gallon of gas in California earlier this week, industry analysts are predicting the rest of the country will soon be feeling the same pain at the pump, or worse.
“There is a real risk the price could reach $6+ a gallon by August,” Natasha Kaneva, head of global oil and commodities research at JPMorgan, told CNN.
That’s just for starters, according to JPMorgan’s “Cruel Summer” report, which predicts that with strong driving demand and shrinking gasoline inventories, the “retail price could surge another 37% by August.”
Joe Biden just canceled a 1-million-plus acre oil lease in Alaska.
It’s like they’re intentionally trying to have high gas prices.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) May 13, 2022
This week marked a wallet-draining milestone, with gasoline prices topping $4-a-gallon in every single state for the first time in U.S. history and the national average price hitting a record $4.50.
That’s up from $3 per gallon last May, and according to JPMorgan there are more steep hikes around the corner.
“Typically, refiners produce more gasoline ahead of the summer road-trip season, building up inventories,” the analysts wrote in “Cruel Summer.”
“But this year, since mid-April, U.S. gasoline inventories have fallen counter seasonally.”
That echoed concerns expressed by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who noted the the country’s “Strategic Petroleum Reserves are at the lowest levels since 1987.”
“This is an unsustainable trend that will keep increasing gas prices for Americans,” Biggs wrote. “Biden must prioritize American energy.”
The JPMorgan analysts agreed. Taking action to avert an economically and socially dire future of skyrocketing gas prices, U.S. refineries must “immediately” reduce exports and increase production, the analysts wrote, or ”US consumers should not expect much in the way of relief in prices at the pump until the end of the year.”
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted the Biden administration for the failures of its domestic policies.
“Americans are struggling with record gas prices – up over 50% since Biden took office – but he doesn’t care,” DeSantis tweeted.
“Rather than expand domestic energy production, he continues to reduce U.S. production capacity.”
That’s entirely by design, using pain at the pump to implement a radical environmental and social-engineering agenda, according to Mean Joe Green Biden.
Biden on high gas prices: “we’re just getting started. I look at this as a serious problem, but also an enormous opportunity, an opportunity” pic.twitter.com/CHReX67A2f
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 28, 2022
Other industry analysts took issue with JPMorgan’s bleak forecast. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told CNN he can’t see gas prices skyrocketing.
”I personally think we’d see a recession before we’d see a national average of $6.”
Yesterday, Biden himself said a recession could be on the way.
He is to blame!
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) April 29, 2022
