US gas prices near $3.60 per gallon as oil swings higher

The US national average for gas prices (RB=F) now sits at $3.57 per gallon, just $0.06 higher than the average for this time last year. Yahoo Finance Senior Business Reporter Ines Ferré monitors the price action hitting US gasoline prices in conjunction to upswings in crude oil (CL=F, BZ=F) activity.

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Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Gasoline prices in the US hitting the highest level in six months today. With more on what's driving that increase, we're joined by Ines Ferre. So what's going on?

INES FERRE: Yeah, Julie. We have gasoline prices now the national average at $3.57, that's $0.07 higher than it was a year ago. In California, you are already seeing gasoline prices above $5 per gallon at $5.20 a gallon. That's about $0.35 higher than just a year ago.

So we're looking at gasoline supplies that are looking tight in California. Also here on the East Coast as well, you've got stockpiles that are falling the most since March of last year. Over in the East Coast, you have stockpiles that have been falling the most since 2021.

You have gasoline futures that are higher. I'm going to pull up the Y-Fi Interactive really quickly for you so you can see the price action that we have seen with Brent and WTI today. Late in the session today, we saw WTI surging above more than $1-- more than 1 and 1/2% above $86 a barrel. Brent crude that closed above $90 per barrel for the first time since October. So besides the falling gasoline inventories, you have the underlying commodity, oil, which is going higher, guys.