Gas Prices in 2021

Gasoline averaged $3.01 in 2021, 84.0¢ above 2020 and 32.5% higher after inflation, the largest percentage increase of any year in the weekly series. The EIA attributed the rise to driving and fuel demand recovering from the pandemic, along with higher crude oil prices.

Prices rose almost continuously. The year’s low was its first week, $2.25 on January 4. In February, a winter storm shut about 3.7 million barrels a day of refining capacity, about 20 percent of the U.S. total, mostly in Texas; the national average rose 13.2¢ in the week of February 22, the year’s largest weekly increase. On May 7, a ransomware attack shut the Colonial Pipeline, the main gasoline supply line to the Southeast, for six days, and the national average passed $3.00 on May 17 for the first time since 2014.

The rise continued through the fall. The high, $3.41, came in the week of November 8. Later that month the federal government announced a release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and prices eased slightly; the year ended at $3.28, more than $1.00 above its first week.

Against 2016, the 2021 average rose 40.4% in current dollars and 24.3% after inflation. The longer comparison runs the other way: 2021 was 14.6% below 2011 in current dollars and 29.1% below it in real terms. Even the peak week of 2021, $3.41 on November 8, 2021, stayed under the 2011 annual average of $3.52. At the other extreme, the cheapest week, $2.25 on January 4, 2021, was already above the 2020 average of $2.17.

The rankings show the same distance from the early-2010s peak. By unadjusted annual average 2021 is 10th of the complete years from 1970 through 2025, and every year above it on that measure falls in 2008 or later. With inflation taken into account it drops to 17th, below every year from 2011 through 2014.

Georgia ($2.65) and Texas ($2.66) had almost identical all-grades averages in EIA’s state estimates for 2021, the lowest in the country. Hawaii’s $4.16 and Alaska’s $4.16 were the highest, and California followed at $3.90, 92.3¢ above the U.S. all-grades figure of $2.98.

The 2020 average was $2.17 and the 2022 average was $3.95, with 2021 at $3.01 between them. From 2021 to 2022 the annual average rose 31.3% at the pump and rose 21.6% in constant 2025 dollars.

The highest U.S. annual average in constant 2025 dollars was $5.08, recorded in 2012. The 2021 figure in the same dollars was $3.58. In 2021 the weekly high and low differed by $1.16, across 52 weeks of EIA data.

Among the states, Hawaii was the most expensive in 2021 at $4.16, and Georgia was the cheapest at $2.65, a difference of $1.51. These are EIA State Energy Data System annual averages for all grades. In 2021, 22 of 51 states, counting D.C., had an average above the U.S. average on that basis.

Among the 56 complete years from 1970 to 2025, 2021 ranks 10th-highest at the pump. In constant 2025 dollars it ranks 17th-highest.