US gasoline prices slip on concerns over Europe’s debt crisis

Gasoline prices slipped by an average of 5.25 cents to $3.2393-a-gallon over a two-week period ended December 16, stats compiled by Lundberg Survey Inc. revealed.

Lundberg Survey Inc. said the gasoline market was receiving downward pressure from declining gasoline demand. It linked the decline in the average price for regular gasoline to uncertainty over the Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

Trilby Lundberg, president of Camarillo, Calif.-based Lundberg Survey, said, “Unknowns about the European debt crisis seem to have made oil prices skittish, and it is the cause of continued declines at the pump.”

For January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYME), gasoline slipped 4.9 per cent or 12.92 cents to $2.487-a-gallon during the same two-week period.

As per MasterCard Inc.’s SpendingPulse report, released on December 13, gasoline demand at the US pumps in the week to December 9 was 8.76 million barrels per day, down 4.6 per cent from the corresponding period of last year.

The Energy Department announced on December 14 that the country’s gasoline stock was 218.8 million as of December 9. The figure was the highest since March 2011.

Experts are of the view that crude oil prices may slip further this week on speculations that Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will get worsen in the coming weeks.