US petrol is 38 cents below its May high. Will it pass $4.60 before New Year?

What happened

Gas prices for consumers are an average $4.20 a gallon, according to AAA, nearly $1.20 a gallon higher than a year ago.

US petrol cost $4.18 a gallon on 31 October. This is the national average for regular petrol from the AAA motoring group. A week earlier it was $4.30, and a month earlier $4.43. A year ago it was $3.04. The highest price this year was $4.56 on 21 May. The highest ever was just over $5, in June 2022.

Petrol rose again in late summer. On 24 September it reached $4.48, the highest ever for that time of year, but still below the May high. Since then it has fallen every week: $4.41 on 1 October, $4.33 on 15 October, $4.27 on 22 October and $4.22 on 29 October. AAA says winter petrol, which is cheaper to make, is pulling the price down, while oil at around $100 a barrel stops it falling faster.

The two biggest US oil companies are doing well. On 30 October ExxonMobil and Chevron both reported better results than expected, helped by higher prices and record output. Exxon’s refineries on the US Gulf coast ran at 100% of their capacity. Fuel has cost more since the war with Iran began in February and largely shut the Strait of Hormuz, a main route for Gulf oil.

US President Donald Trump told a rally in Georgia on 24 October that high prices were good for the country: “we’re making a frickin’ fortune”. In a Harris poll for the Guardian, 36% of voters named the cost of living as the most important issue in the 3 November elections.

The drop is fueled by the transition to winter-blend gasoline which is cheaper to produce and costs less for consumers. But high crude oil prices are preventing steep declines at the pump.

AAA, 22 October 2026

Sources: The Guardian, AAA (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), The Independent

The Pattern

We looked for cases where the US petrol price in the last week of October was lower than a month before and below that year’s high, after a second rise had stopped short of the high, while oil had not lost more than 5% in that month. Weekly prices from the US Energy Information Administration start in August 1990. We found seven such years since 1991. For each one we followed the price to the last week of December.

The Read

Petrol would need to rise 42 cents, or about 10%, to pass $4.60. In the seven past years the best rise after late October was 4.7%, in 2020, and in five of them the best week came within three weeks. Petrol ended the year lower in five of the seven years. In 2001 and 2022 it fell 14% or more, both times in the third week of December.

This year oil has pushed petrol up fast. Three times in 2026 petrol rose 8% to 11% within three weeks after oil jumped: from April to May, in July, and from late August to September. US oil cost $107.17 a barrel in the week to 23 October, its highest price this year and 14.5% more than a month before. In the seven past years oil had never risen that much in the month before late October. The most was 9.7%, in 2022. Yet in the four weeks to 26 October the weekly pump price fell 4%, from $4.47 to $4.27 a gallon, as cheaper winter petrol came in.

There are reasons for doubt. The past prices are weekly averages from the US Energy Information Administration, while the questions here use AAA’s daily price, and the two differ: the 2026 high is $4.50 on the weekly figures and $4.56 at AAA. On the weekly figures petrol is now 5.4% below its high, closer than in any of the seven past years. In 1999, when the gap was 2.5%, petrol did pass its high in late November. Counting only years when oil cost more than a month before, as it does now, petrol ended the year lower in two of four.

Sources: US Energy Information Administration (2), AAA (2, 3)