MIAMI – Experts believe 2022 is likely going to be an expensive year at the pump for people across the United States.
They say oil prices, the pandemic, and global unrest, are to blame.
“It’s going to be a bumpy ride and it could be a particularly painful year for people filling their tanks,” said Patrick De Hann with GasBuddy. “January, February, think of these 2 months as the calm before the storm.”
De Haan is the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. He says the first place to look to explain why prices at the pump are rising Is actually overseas.
“There have been some global events, unrest in Kazakhstan, instability potentially in Libya, and Russia now could be targeting Ukraine, so all of these are oil-producing countries, and what happens could impact the amount of oil being supplied to the global market,” he said.
Then there’s the pandemic and how its impacting things in the US.
AAA spokesman Mark Jenkins said COVID drove demand for oil and gas down significantly in 2020 because so many fewer people were on the roads.
“As a result of that, you had a lot of oil companies that cut back on their production levels,” Jenkins said. “Then in 2021, a lot of that demand came roaring back, but the production levels, the supplies, did not keep pace with that.”
That led to the demand being higher than the supply, which drive prices up. That’s where things currently stand, but the question continues to be how high will prices go?
De Hann expects prices to potentially jump .15 to .25 cents per month beginning in March and not stopping until Memorial Day.
“That could bring ultimately Southern Florida, Miami prices close to an average of $4 dollars or even potentially breaching that $4 dollar per gallon mark for part of the summer,” he said.
GasBuddy believes prices in Miami will likely peak somewhere between $3.85 per gallon on the low end, to $4.15 on the high end, and that will likely be as we head from spring into summer.
The good news is they expect prices to slowly drop back down again as we close out the back half of the year.