The cost of gas in the Peoria area is mostly unchanged over the past week as the calendar turned to May.
The fuel cost analysis website GasBuddy shows the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded at just under $3.34 — a change of less than 1 cent in the past week.
However, that average is down about $.06 from the start of April and $.43 from this time last year.
GasBuddy put the national average at $3.12, contradicting President Donald Trump’s claim in a Friday social media post that gas had dropped to $1.98 a gallon.
In its weekly blog update Monday, GasBuddy said the national average increased for the first time in nearly a month.
“Here in the U.S., slightly more than half of the states saw gas prices rise, while many others saw modest decline,” GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan said in the blog. “We continued to see price cycling in states prone to such movements, including much of the Great Lakes region, as well as in Maryland, Florida, and parts of Texas.”
De Haan said an anticipated increase in oil production by OPEC and higher output from U.S. refineries in the coming weeks could push the national average even lower in the upcoming weeks.
“As [refinery] maintenance wraps up, we could see an increase in gasoline supply and a national average that may soon dip below $3 per gallon,” he said.
GasBuddy reported the statewide average for Illinois at $3.35 — one of eight states with an average above $3.26. Pennsylvania was the only other state east of Arizona among those eight.
The website ranked Peoria as the 70th most expensive market out of the 456 across the country.
