COLUMBUS – Don’t worry about the recent jump in central Ohio gasoline prices. The bigger trend looks much better: Summer pump prices are on track to be the lowest in 12 years.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
This summer, the national average price for unleaded regular is projected to be $2.04, down 59 cents from last year, said a report issued Tuesday by the Energy Information Administration. Ohio’s price is often close to the national average.
“This shale revolution in the United States has been a very big deal, much bigger than anyone expected six or seven years ago,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates, an oil trading advisory firm in Chicago, of how U.S. crude-oil production is helping lower prices at the pump.
Low prices mean that an average U.S. household is projected to spend $350 less on gasoline in 2016 than in 2015, said Adam Sieminski, administrator of the federal office.
The outlook for summer driving comes as central Ohio prices have climbed in recent weeks, pushing to above $2 for the first time since November.
The prices are rising but remain quite low compared to when they were almost double near the start of this decade. Motorists in central Ohio were paying an average of $2.18 per gallon Wednesday, 25 cents higher than a month earlier but 17 cents lower than a year ago, according to a daily survey by AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and WEX, Inc.
Prices are about half of what drivers were paying in May 2011 when the average price hit $4.18, the all-time high.