U.S. consumers can expect gasoline prices around $4 a gallon (3.8 liters) through next year and should see crude-oil prices remaining well above $100 a barrel, the Energy Department said Wednesday. Crude prices are likely to average $126 a barrel in 2009, $4 higher than this year, as oil supplies and demand are expected to remain tight, Guy Caruso, the head of the department's Energy Information Administration (EIA), told a congressional hearing. Retail gasoline prices are expected to peak at $4.15 a gallon in August and will not decline much after that, the EIA forecast in a report. Gasoline was predicted to average $3.92 a gallon through 2009. The agency said the higher price of gasoline has reduced expected demand for this summer, but not enough to lower prices significantly. Caruso told lawmakers that new automobile fuel-efficiency requirements and the increased use of ethanol and other alternative fuels are expected to produce “a substantial reduction” in U.S. oil use and oil imports over the next two decades. However, Caruso acknowledged that predicting future energy prices is highly uncertain due to the volatile global markets. The EIA projected oil prices declining to $86 a barrel in 2010 and then rising to $107 by 2015. Crude-oil prices jumped Wednesday after the EIA said in its weekly petroleum-inventory report that U.S. crude supplies fell more than expected. Light sweet crude for July delivery rose $4.50 to almost $136 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
