Gasoline prices moved in sharply different directions across the country last week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey of retail stations. While the national average barely budged, drivers in Colorado, Ohio and a couple of other states saw some of the steepest single-week declines the agency logged all year. For households in those states, it’s real relief at the pump, even though prices are still running well above where they sat twelve months ago.
Colorado’s Pump Prices Dropped 25 Cents in a Single Week
Colorado’s statewide average fell from $4.384 a gallon on August 24 to $4.132 on August 31, a one-week drop of 25.2 cents. That’s a 5.7% decline in seven days, one of the larger weekly swings EIA recorded anywhere in the country for the period, and it reverses a run-up that had pushed the state’s average above $4.38 just a week earlier.
Denver, the state’s largest metro area, moved even more. The city’s average fell 26.6 cents in the same week, from $4.430 to $4.164 a gallon, tracking closely with the statewide figure, according to EIA’s Colorado price history. When a state number and its largest city move together by roughly the same amount, it usually points to a regional supply shift rather than a handful of stations changing signs on their own.
Free retirement updates: A quiet rule change can shrink your Social Security or Medicare check, and no one warns you. The free Retirement Shield newsletter catches these early and tells you what to do. Get it free.
Ohio Prices Slid Below $3.80 a Gallon
Ohio’s average dropped from $3.981 to $3.797 a gallon over the same week, an 18.4-cent decline, or about 4.6%, that pushed the state back under the $3.80 mark for the first time in several weeks of EIA’s data. A week earlier, Ohio had actually been sliding the opposite direction, up from $4.180 to $3.981 between August 17 and August 24, so the latest reading is a reversal rather than a continuation of an existing trend.
Cleveland saw a comparable move, falling 16.1 cents from $4.133 to $3.972. As with Colorado and Denver, the state and city figures tracked together, reinforcing that something at the regional level, not one city’s stations, is driving the change.
Minnesota Also Posted a Sizable One-Week Decline
Minnesota’s average fell 11.6 cents, from $4.071 to $3.955 a gallon, according to EIA’s Minnesota series, the third state the agency flagged with a double-digit weekly drop. It’s a smaller move than Colorado’s or Ohio’s, but still well outside the normal week-to-week noise the survey usually shows, and it comes after Minnesota’s own average had climbed from $3.948 to $4.071 the week before.
The National Average Barely Moved
None of this shows up clearly in the number most people hear about. The national average for regular gasoline slipped just 1.4 cents, from $4.085 to $4.071 a gallon, according to EIA’s national series. That’s because other parts of the country moved the opposite way at the same time: the West Coast average rose 5.9 cents to $5.206, and New England climbed 7 cents to $4.096.
Big regional swings in opposite directions cancel each other out in a single nationwide average. That’s why a state-by-state check is often more useful than the headline figure if you’re deciding whether to fill up now, in a state where prices just fell, or wait, in a state where they’re still climbing.
Refineries Are Running Near Full Capacity Nationwide
EIA’s release also tracks the supply side behind these prices. Over the four weeks ending August 28, crude oil input to U.S. refineries averaged 17.37 million barrels a day, with refinery utilization at 97.2%, near the top of the range refineries typically run. Motor gasoline production averaged 9.72 million barrels a day over the same period. Running this close to capacity generally means refiners have less spare room to absorb a disruption anywhere in the system without it eventually showing up at the pump somewhere.
That backdrop helps explain why a handful of states can post a sharp weekly drop while the nationwide figure hardly moves. Supply built up in one part of the country during a quieter stretch can work its way into local prices quickly once demand or logistics shift, even while refiners elsewhere are already running flat out and have little room to send more fuel a state’s way.
Why the Relief Doesn’t Erase a Year of Higher Prices
Even with last week’s declines, none of these states are cheap compared with a year ago. Colorado is still $1.071 a gallon higher than it was at this time last year, Ohio is up 62.5 cents, and Minnesota is up 92.7 cents, per EIA’s year-over-year figures built into the same weekly release. On a 15-gallon fill-up, that’s roughly $16 more in Colorado, $9 more in Ohio and $14 more in Minnesota than a driver paid a year ago, even after last week’s drop.
EIA updates this survey every Monday and is scheduled to publish its next reading on September 9, so anyone weighing whether to fill up now or wait a few more days for prices to fall further has fresh numbers coming soon rather than a long wait.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
More Financial Reading
