nations. like russia. like russia. 81% in 2021. fastest recovery after the 1973 arab oil embargo. we had a gas study and they said they were headed to $4 national gas price by memorial day. this is what americans have to endure, higher gas prices? that s right. the national average is hitting $3.40 a gallon today. that s up 6 cents. prices at the pump down to $3.28 a gallon late last year. that was because of the u.s. led intervention. the biden administration announced the largest release of the strategic oil preserve. that s just 12 hours of demand. this was more than we are. fast forward two cents a month.
$3.28 and came right back up. the spr was never really going to be a game changer. it was always more of a band-aid. they announced 50 million barrels that would be released but that s just 12 hours of world demand, 12 hours. we got more bad news on the supply front just yesterday. opec plus, the producer group led by saudi arabia and russia, they pretty much telegraphed they re not coming to the rescue. they re going to stick to their plan to increase production just modestly, not doing something more aggressive that would have cooled off prices. u.s. oil companies have been reluctant to ramp up production, too. you put it together and you have prices going up. oil today, u.s. oil prices closing above $90 a barrel for the first time since october 2014. they have completely recovered from that from the spring of 2020 and because gas prices move with a lag to oil, that suggests that prices at the pump will keep going higher from here.
into lower prices as we close out 2022. still at the end of 2022 we are still talking about prices that may not get under that $3 mark. julie: right now the average for a regular gallon of gas is $3.28. more than a dollar a gallon more expensive than this time last year. i don t really know what to make of this but i do not see 2022 starting on a very positive note. that s the last thing that administration wants. i would think so. it would make you wonder, julie, why wouldn t the administration look at what we just laid out which is so obvious to everyone, too much demand, not enough supply. let s focus in on how to create more supply. that s what is generating all this. i still say that the supply problem, the supply chain is
to give right away. - [alec] big or small, your gift helps us all. - [both] thank you. (giggling) how bizarre by omc no annual fee on any discover card. tonight, gas prices projected to reach nearly $4 a gallon by memorial day. that s according to a new forecast from gas buddy shared exclusively with cnn. today, the average price of gas, $3.28. up an astonishing 46% from this time a year ago when the average price was $2.25. let me bring in patrick dehon, head of petroleum analysis for gas wbuddy. good evening, thank you so much for being with me. the president just leesed all
prices to rise next year. they see a 2022 average of $3.41 a gallon, up from around $3 this year. they think gas prices are going to peak in may at $3.79 a gallon, essentially right as everyone is heading out for the summer, memorial day weekend, we could be seeing gas prices flirting with $4 a gallon before they fall sharply later in the year. now, this would unwind some of the recent progress we ve seen on the gas front. the national average is currently $3.28 a gallon. that s not cheap. it s up by about a dollar from a year ago. but it is down 14 cents from the peak we saw in early november. we should note, there is a lot of uncertainty here. others are calling for gas prices to drop. citi group has predicted and warned their clients there s going to be what they called a, quote, radical drop in energy prices. the energy department s research arm is calling for an average of $2.88 a gallon next year.