The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Short-Term Energy Outlook reports increasing gas consumption this coming summer.
Based on weekly data, EIA predicts that average national gas consumption will be 9 million barrels a day from April through September. As compared to last month, that is an increase of 100,000 barrels a day. Though this time last year saw 1.2 million fewer barrels a day, this year’s forecast is still 600,000 barrels a day less than summer 2019.
In this year’s second quarter, gasoline prices are expected to average $2.89 a gallon across the United States, decreasing slightly both in the third and fourth quarters. Diesel gas is forecasted at $3.05 in the second quarter, again close to the peak price for the year.
This EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook report was conducted before the East-coast pipeline shutdown that began May 7.
The EIA stated, “Although effects of the outage are not reflected in this report, we are closely following supply and price developments related to the outage.”
