Prices at the pump will be lower this summer than in recent years, experts say.
While Indiana’s average price per gallon spiked 9.3 cents this week, it is still about 50 cents cheaper than it was last summer, according to GasBuddy.com.
“Summer prices will likely be the cheapest they’ve been in 10 years,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, who is comparing overall seasonal averages.
U.S. drivers have saved nearly $12 billion on gas so far this year compared with the same period in 2015, AAA recently reported. Meanwhile, the auto club took a survey that found 55 percent of Americans say they are more likely to take a road trip this year because of lower gas prices.
That could lead to an eventual rebalancing of supply and demand.
Right now, the country has a higher than normal supply of gas and crude oil. However, U.S. oil production is 8 percent lower than its peak last summer and production in many other countries is also down, DeHaan said, so if more drivers take to the roads than is predicted, inventories might shrink.
And once the market tightens, any disruption in supply could lead to spikes in oil and gas prices.
The problem with predicting gas prices is that they are driven by economic forces all over the world, said Wally Tyner, a Purdue University energy economist.
For example, countries like Nigeria and Venezuela have had long-term supply issues because of civil war and political unrest, and a labor strike in Kuwait halted production in the country for several days.