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AAA Hoosier Motor Club Gas Gauge
(June 4, 2008)

National Unleaded Retail Gas Price Averages

Indiana’s Unleaded Retail Gas Price Averages

Highest Recorded Price:

Retail Gas Price Averages (Indiana Metro)
Updated average prices for unleaded retail gasoline in some Indiana metro areas can be found online through AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report site. Please click on View Indiana Metro Areas.


Retail Gas Price Averages (State-by-State)
Updated state-by-state unleaded retail gasoline price averages can be found online through AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report site. Please click on View State-by-State Averages.


Market Overview
While nationwide gas price averages have continued to increase, statewide averages in Indiana have been dropping back almost a penny per day since last weekend.

A recent reduction in the cost of crude oil is undoubtedly helping Hoosiers at the pump. Oil has backed away from its record high of $135 per barrel on May 22 and is now trading for approximately $125 per barrel.

Oil and gasoline prices became super heated in the run-up to the Memorial Day holiday weekend and the customary surge in fuel demand that this holiday typically represents. Adding fuel to the fire was a projection from the brokerage firm, Goldman Sachs that oil prices could move to $150 to $200 per barrel in the next year.

The expectations that prices would move higher based on continued strong demand were tempered, however, by several factors. These included:

1.  AAA’s holiday travel forecast which showed a projected decline of 1 percent in intent to travel for the first time in more than a decade.

2.  Data from Mastercard International that showed gasoline consumption prior to the Memorial Day holiday was about 5.5 percent below the same period one year ago.

3.  A U.S. Department of Transportation report that showed estimated vehicle miles traveled on U.S. public roads for March of this year fell 4.3 percent compared with 2007. The agency said the decline was 11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March and was “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) history.”

4.  An admission by the Commodities Future Trading Commission in the United States that it has been working with counterparts in London and elsewhere since December on a review of international oil trading activity.

The combination of these four factors seems to have created uncertainty in the minds of oil traders as to whether oil was becoming highly overpriced, and whether a sizable correction in energy prices might occur.

Other important news this week was the announcement yesterday by General Motors that it views the ongoing shift by American consumers away from larger, less fuel-efficient models to ones that are significantly more fuel-efficient as “permanent.”  GM said, among other announcements, that it will bring its concept electric vehicle, the “Volt,” to market by 2010 and that it has approved plans to make several new smaller and more fuel efficient models; including those that will use a new engine that may have a displacement as small as one liter.  

While other auto manufacturers are making similar investments and announcements, it seems significant that a domestic manufacturer long-associated with producing among the largest passenger vehicles on the road has turned a corner with regard to its future projections and products for the American market.


AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report
Current gas price averages can always be found on AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report at www.fuelgaugereport.com. The report is based on data from Oil Price Information Service, the nation’s most comprehensive source of petroleum pricing information. AAA purchases the data and makes it available free on the Internet as a public service. Average daily prices for the nation, all 50 states and more than 250 localities are available for all grades of gasoline, making the site the most current and complete public source of fuel price information.


AAA’s Fuel Cost Calculator
In order to help Americans establish travel budgets while making vacation plans, AAA and Oil Price Information Service have combined to offer an online tool that will help travelers estimate the cost of gasoline they will use during long-distance driving vacations. The site can be found at www.fuelcostcalculator.com.


Indiana’s Gas Gouging Hotline
The Indiana attorney general established a gas gouging hotline early in 2004 for people who feel that local gas stations are charging unfair prices. That telephone number is (866) 241-9753.

AAA

AAA Hoosier Motor Club is a fully tax-paying, not-for-profit corporation that offers a wide range of services. The 405,000-member affiliate of the American Automobile Association (AAA) works for the improvement of motoring and traveling conditions within its 50-county Indiana territory. AAA is the largest motoring and traveling organization in the world with more than 51 million members.

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