The way 22-year-old Erica Antwi sees things, if she has to sacrifice, so does her car.
Her silver Chrysler 300 sedan is used to purring down the highway on premium gasoline. But for the past two months, Antwi has been filling its tank with the cheaper grade. And filling up still hurts her wallet.
“It’s like $62 every two days or three days,” Antwi said as she pumped 15 gallons into the tank at a Shell station. “I can’t afford the premium anymore. Gas is killing everybody’s money.”
The cost of filling the tank has surged this year, putting gasoline prices precariously close to an average $4 per gallon as the busy summer traveling season looms.
But analysts say relief could be on its way.
“We could be in a situation where we’ve hit the crest” of prices this year, said Dan Ronan, manager of corporate communication for AAA Texas-New Mexico.
With Memorial Day weekend just two weeks away, the national average price for a gallon of regular hit $3.98 Friday, AAA reported.
Houston wasn’t far behind, averaging $3.91 a gallon. The statewide average in Texas was $3.89.
Americans are likely to see gasoline prices stay below $4 and perhaps fall as low as $3.25 this summer as crude oil markets continue to “sober up” after spiking this spring, forecasts Tom Kloza, senior oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.
Higher prices this year came amid political unrest in oil-producing states in the Middle East and North Africa, a weak U.S. dollar and rising energy demand with the global economic recovery.
The driving boom that usually starts with the summer travel season typically would push prices even higher. But drivers are already resisting at the pump, and that declining demand should put downward pressure on gasoline prices.
Albert Abusalah, who runs a shell station in Houston, says he’s seen the change in his customers’ driving habits.
“My business has dropped big time because of the prices,” he said. “People don’t buy gas as much as they used to.”
At another Houston Shell station, driver Megan Pappion said she takes out a $20 bill — and not a penny more – whenever she hits the pump.
“I don’t even look at the prices anymore because it is depressing,” Pappion said.
U.S. fuel consumption has hit its lowest level in nearly two years, according to AAA, about 18.2 million barrels a day.
Oil prices also are responding to that pullback, falling to about $100 a barrel from $115 in late April. Benchmark crude closed the week Friday at $99.65, up 68 cents, in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Typically, gasoline prices respond more slowly to falling demand, oil industry analysts say, because much of the gasoline now being pumped was purchased at a higher price.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts the U.S. gasoline price will average $3.81 a gallon during this summer’s driving season, April 1 to Sept. 30, according to its Short-Term Energy Outlook report this week.
But in the world of gasoline prices, nothing is certain – especially during the summer.
With hurricane season starting June 1 and political unrest still plaguing the Middle East, there’s plenty of uncertainty about oil supplies.
“The risks out there are still very large,” said Larry Goldstein, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Energy Policy Research Foundation. “We are moving into the summertime, and you know the gun is going to go off, but you don’t know when.”
The optimism about a drop in gasoline prices could also change if refineries are affected by Mississippi River floods in south Louisiana, home to more than 10 percent of the nation’s oil refining capacity.
“If refineries are flooded, we’ll see the dramatic increases in gasoline and diesel that are normally associated with hurricane landfall,” Kloza, the oil analyst, said in a blog entry Friday.
Refiners with facilities in the region, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Marathon Oil, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy Corp., have said they are taking precautions to safeguard plants and prevent interruptions.
Even if pump prices continue to moderate, driving will cost more this summer than last, when the season average was $2.76 a gallon.
But drivers are hoping that it will fall short of the 2008 season, when oil hit a record $147 in July, pushing gasoline to a record U.S. average of $4.11 a gallon.
Either way, Viper driver Omar Sakkal isn’t letting the prices get to him.
“It’s a part of life. You gotta roll with the punches,” he said as he pumped $15 of premium gasoline, totaling 3.4 gallons.
“You can’t dwell on this, because you can’t fix it,” he said.
Houston Chronicle reporter Brett Clanton contributed to this report.
