LOS ANGELES, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in the United States, which held steady last week after a storm of surging prices in March, could rise again due to the volatility of oil price, GasBuddy said Monday.
According to a blog of the Boston-based company that operates apps and websites based on finding real-time fuel prices in the country, the national average price of gas is 4.23 U.S. dollars per gallon, up 62.4 cents from a month ago and 1.38 U.S. dollars higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel rose 8.2 cents last week and now stands at 5.12 dollars per gallon.
The company, which collects data from more than 11 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country, also said the median U.S. gas price is 3.99 dollars per gallon, down 6 cents from last week and about 24 cents lower than the national average.
The states with the lowest average prices are Oklahoma (3.79 dollars), Kansas (3.79 dollars), and Arkansas (3.80 dollars), while the states with the highest prices include California (5.91 dollars), Nevada (5.22 dollars), and Hawaii (5.11 dollars).
Nationally, the highest average price for regular-grade gas is in Los Angeles, at 5.99 dollars per gallon and the lowest average is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at 3.70 dollars per gallon.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, was quoted as saying that the decline in average gas prices in most states last week had been slowing down as oil prices had held above 100 dollars after declining under that level as recently as a few weeks ago.
"For the near future, we'll see a mix of slight decreases and some potential increases mixed in. California markets should finally cool off and areas could even move lower in Southern California, while the Great Lakes could see gas prices jump up after having fallen for the last week or so," he said.
On Monday, the American Automobile Association (AAA) which releases daily gas prices as well, also warned that as the cost of a barrel of oil has remained near 110 dollars, the decline of gas price at the pump had slowed.
"After hitting 4.33 dollars on March 11, the national average for a gallon of gasoline is now 4.24 dollars, but only down a penny since last week," AAA's Monday report said. "Domestically, gasoline demand is again defying seasonal trends and has dipped for the second straight week, perhaps due to higher pump prices and consumers altering their driving habits." ■