Gas Prices in 1991

The average price fell 2.1% in 1991, to $1.12 a gallon, and 6.0% after inflation, to $2.64 in 2025 dollars. The decline came even though the federal tax had risen by 5¢ in December 1990, so the pre-tax price fell by more.

On January 16, 1991, as the air campaign against Iraq began, President Bush announced a coordinated emergency release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of an International Energy Agency response. Crude prices fell sharply once the campaign started, returning close to where they had been before the invasion of Kuwait. The Department of Energy ultimately sold 17.3 million barrels from the reserve, with deliveries completed by April.

The recession that began in July 1990 ended in March 1991, but recovery was slow and fuel demand grew little. Kuwait’s oil fields, set on fire by retreating Iraqi forces, took most of the year to bring under control, and Kuwaiti exports remained well below their pre-war level. In real terms, the 1991 decline reversed 83% of the 1990 increase.

Georgia, at $0.99, was the only state where gasoline averaged less than a dollar a gallon in 1991. California came next at $1.02, and Missouri third.

New England held three of the four highest averages. Rhode Island ($1.26), Connecticut ($1.26) and Massachusetts ($1.25) ranked directly behind Hawaii ($1.30), whose margin over the national average was 18.4¢. West Virginia was fifth, and Michigan was fourth from the cheap end. Restated in 2025 dollars, the two ends of the 1991 table come to $2.35 for Georgia and $3.08 for Hawaii.

The national average of $1.12 ranks 38th-highest at the pump and 42nd-highest in real terms. Compared with 1981, the pump price was 18.4% lower and the real price 45.5% lower. The next ten years brought a different pattern: the pump figure rose 27.1%, while the real price slipped 2.2%, so 2001 cost slightly less than 1991 in constant dollars. Twenty years out, 2011 stood 215.2% above 1991 at the pump and 90.8% above it after inflation, close to twice the real cost.

The 1990 national average was $1.14, and the 1991 figure of $1.12 was followed by $1.12 again in 1992. From 1991 to 1992 the pump price rose 0.3%, while the same step in constant 2025 dollars fell 2.6%.

In the state table for 1991, the gap between Hawaii ($1.30) and Georgia ($0.99) was 30.6¢. Of the 51 states counting D.C., 33 of 51 averaged above the U.S. figure of $1.12.

The 1981 national average at the pump was $1.37. In constant 2025 dollars, the 1991 average fell 45.5% from its 1981 level. The highest inflation-adjusted annual average from 1970 to 2025 was $5.08, recorded in 2012, against the 1991 real average of $2.64.

Before 2000 the national figure is the EIA State Energy Data System average for all grades of motor gasoline, taxes included, and is approximate. The site holds no weekly data for 1991, and the record covers 56 complete years.