Jeff Currie: The average gasoline price in the US may reach $5 per gallon before the midterm elections

Senior commodity strategist Jeff Currie stated that the average gasoline price in the United States will almost certainly reach $5 per gallon before the midterm elections, due to a deadly combination of scarcity and currency depreciation. What began as a shortage of refined oil products has now spread upstream to crude oil, pushing the energy shock into a dangerous new phase. Gasoline reaching $5 per gallon is an important psychological threshold, especially with the congressional control undecided as voters go to the polls on November 3 for the midterm elections. The probability of gasoline hitting $5 before Election Day is "extremely high". Currie warned that refineries are switching back and forth between diesel and gasoline production, which will eventually exhaust their operational flexibility. In addition, there are no signs of an extension to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases that have helped fill supply gaps. In the future, U.S. diesel prices could reach $7 to $9 per gallon. The market is entering a very dangerous stage in this round of commodity price surges, as shortages on both fronts are so extreme that the entire sector is moving together. This simultaneous surge indicates that the problem is more structural than a typical supply squeeze.