U.S. gas prices stable at $3.83 per gallon and demand remains resilient

Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Retail gasoline prices in the United States remained stable over the weekend and it remains to be seen if the recent spike in commodity prices will catch up to the consumer.

Travel club AAA put the national average retail price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at $3.83 for Monday, unchanged from Friday's levels but 30 cents higher than this time last month.

Prices are elevated due to heat-related refinery issues in the U.S. South, where temperatures are still in the triple digits despite some relief elsewhere in the country. Compounding the matter were decisions last week from Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut oil production in September by a collective 1.3 million barrels per day.

Neither country is a major crude oil exporter to the United States, though production cuts matter to the global price of oil, which accounts for the bulk of what consumers see at the pump.

The price for Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, was trading in negative territory early Monday, which Ed Moya at New York brokerage OANDA attributed to a recent poll from Bloomberg showing an increase in expectations that the U.S. economy will enter into a recession before the end of next year.

Nevertheless, Brent at $85.60 per barrel is 15% higher than during the first week of July.

Gas prices, meanwhile, are among the more ubiquitous economic indicators for consumers, though demand is holding up. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department's data cruncher, showed an implied metric for consumer demand for gasoline was up 3% over the same period last year. Gas prices averaged $4.07 nationally at this time last year.

A July estimate from EIA put the annual average this year at $3.40 per gallon, though a revision is expected later this week.