U.S. gasoline prices have been climbing towards a new all-time record as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has left world markets in disarray. The announcement of an embargo on Russian oil by the Biden administration did the rest to make prices shoot through the roof.
On Monday, a new record price for gasoline is expected from the Energy Information Administration. On this previous Monday, the average price of gas in the U.S. stood at $4.10, according to the agency, only one cent below the all-time record of $4.11 that occurred on July 7, 2008, just before the Great Recession hit.
The Russian war in Ukraine has driven up oil and other commodity prices in most countries, with gas prices turning into a topic of discussion around the world. However, as taxes make up the majority of the price of gas in many industrialized nations, and U.S. taxes on gasoline are comparably low, the U.S. gas price is still not as high as it might appear when adding a global perspective.
Even at an average price of more than $4.00 per gallon, Americans are still paying much less than many other industrialized nations to fill up, including other car-based economies like Brazil, Australia or South Africa. According to the website Global Petrol Prices, the latter two nations were already paying upwards of $5.00 for a gallon, while prices in Brazil were approaching $4.90.
Europe’s more expensive than (almost) anywhere
Europe has some of the highest gas prices in the world. Most of Western Europe was paying upwards of $6.00 for a gallon of gas as of March 7, the highest prices being charged in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The priciest major European economy as of that date was Germany, charging $8.23 per gallon. The most expensive gallon of gas included in the ranking was sold in Hong Kong at $10.72, which means that filling up even a small car would break the $100 barrier.
Norway is an outlier among oil producing countries as it taxes gasoline at a premium. The country bases lots of its wealth on oil but has for many years pursued a strategy of making its own economy independent of the fossil fuel. Other oil producers have gone the opposite route, offering gasoline to its citizens for less than the price of bottled water. The most drastic examples for this are Venezuela, Libya and Iran, where gasoline only costs a couple of cents per gallon.
Gas cheaper than bottled water
Cheap gas prices—even though not this extreme—can also be observed throughout North Africa and the Middle East as well as in Central Asia and Russia. In Algeria, for example, gasoline cost only around $1.20 per gallon most recently, while in Russia, the price was approximately $1.40.
Eastern and Southern Asia, which isn’t known for having many oil producers, was another region paying a premium for gasoline. Deep pockets are also needed in a few countries where weak government or trade structures have led to price hikes, for example in Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.
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Charted by Statista
