HOUSTON — Looking for an excuse to pack up the car for a road trip this weekend?
Look no further: The average nationwide gasoline price on Friday was the lowest for this point of the year since 2005, according to GasBuddy, a website and smartphone app designed to help drivers find the best deals at the pump.
The immediate cause of the price break was the shock to global oil markets that came when the Energy Department reported this week that domestic inventories of both crude oil and gasoline had surprisingly surged the week before despite heavy driving on the Memorial Day weekend.
Crude oil prices plummeted by more than 5 percent on Wednesday alone, and are near a one-year low at less than $46 a barrel.
The price drop has been all the more remarkable given that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has imposed a production cut since the start of the year, and Saudi Arabia and its allies cut off relations with Qatar this week, threatening the kind of heightened tensions in the Middle East that normally push energy prices higher.
But whatever lies behind the dividend at the pump, drivers are happy to have it. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline tumbled to $2.35 on Friday, a drop of 3 cents in the past week and more than 2 cents below last year at this time, according to AAA. And Friday was the first time this year that prices were lower than a year earlier.
Among the beneficiaries was Charlene Kotlarsic of Garfield Heights, Ohio, who was filling up her 2016 Kia Sorento in the Cleveland suburbs for $2.21 a gallon. She expects to take advantage of the lower prices for a road trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., in July. “I probably wouldn’t have planned it if gas prices were $3 and above,” she said.
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