Gas Prices in 2017

Gasoline averaged $2.42 in 2017, 27.2¢ above 2016 and 10.3% higher after inflation, as crude oil prices recovered further. For most of the year, prices moved very little. The monthly average stayed between $2.30 and $2.42 from January through August, and there was no spring peak. The year’s low, $2.26, came in the week of July 3.

That changed at the end of August. Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas on August 25 and flooded the Houston and Beaumont–Port Arthur refining centers; the EIA reported that about 3.9 million barrels a day of Gulf Coast refining capacity was offline at the peak, and several product pipelines serving the East Coast were shut. In the week of September 4, the national average rose 28¢ to $2.68, the largest weekly increase since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It peaked at $2.69 the following week.

The increase reversed as refineries restarted, though more slowly than it arrived: prices fell 6.1¢ in the week of October 9, the year’s largest weekly decline, and the year ended at $2.47, about 10¢ above its first week.

At the pump, 2017 ranked 17th-highest among the 56 complete years from 1970 to 2025. In 2025 dollars it ranked 30th-highest. The highest inflation-adjusted annual average in that span was $5.08, recorded in 2012, against $3.17 for 2017.

The 2016 average was $2.14, and the 2017 average rose 12.7% from it at the pump. The 2018 average was $2.72, up 12.6% from 2017 at the pump. In constant 2025 dollars, the rise from 2016 to 2017 was 10.3%, and the rise from 2017 to 2018 was 9.9%.

Over ten years, the 2007 average was $2.80 at the pump, compared with $2.42 in 2017. In constant 2025 dollars, the 2017 average fell 26.9% from 2007.

State figures, from the EIA State Energy Data System and covering all grades, put Alabama lowest in 2017 at $2.23 and Hawaii highest at $3.23. The difference between them was $1.00. On that basis, 22 of 51 states, including D.C., averaged above the U.S. figure in 2017.