Gasoline prices go up in a puff of smoke

$4.33

The national average gasoline price per gallon on March 11, according to the American Automobile Association. That figure was the highest ever recorded by the AAA and represented a 54 percent increase in the price of gasoline from March 2021. The run-up in prices of both oil and gasoline comes less than two years after petrol values cratered in the beginning months of the coronavirus pandemic when nations around the world began imposing tight restrictions. Oil producers that shut down capacity in 2020 could only slowly ramp up production when demand roared back. Domestic economic relief packages in 2020 and 2021 and Federal Reserve policy provoked a generalized inflation that led to further increases. To make matters worse, Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting economic sanctions, threaten to sideline one of the world’s major oil exporters.

-$37.63

The futures price for a ­barrel of West Texas Intermediate oil on April 20, 2020, early in the pandemic, meaning ­investors had to pay for people to take their oil contracts.

11.2

The average number, in millions, of barrels per day of oil produced in the United States in 2021, down from 11.3 million barrels per day in 2020 and 12.2 million in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

$6.02

The average cost of a ­gallon of gasoline in San Luis Obispo, Calif., in March 2022, the highest in the nation and two-thirds higher than an ­average gallon in Lawton, Okla., according to AAA.

7%

The share of oil imports into the United States provided by Russia in 2021, according to Forbes.