The EIA's Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices report drops every Monday at 5:00 PM Eastern. It's free, exhaustive, and the single best consumer-level data source on US fuel prices. Here's how to actually read it.
What's actually in the report
Every Monday, the EIA publishes average retail prices (regular, midgrade, premium, and diesel) for the nation, five PADD regions, and nine individual states. The data is sampled from about 1,000 stations across the country and weighted by volume.
States not individually broken out (most of them) are represented by their PADD region — a groupings of states based on refining and distribution basins. The report also includes weekly, monthly, and year-ago comparisons.
The first chart to look at: national vs. year-ago
The year-over-year comparison chart (in nearly every weekly release) shows current national average against the same week a year ago. A persistent gap tells you demand conditions have changed structurally — a one-week divergence is usually noise.
In normal years, the year-over-year difference is under 10%. Spikes above 20% or drops below -15% correlate with macro events: recessions, supply shocks, OPEC actions, or major refinery outages.
Watch the PADD spreads
The US is divided into five Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts: East Coast (PADD 1), Midwest (PADD 2), Gulf Coast (PADD 3), Rocky Mountains (PADD 4), and West Coast (PADD 5). Normal spreads between PADD 3 (lowest, Gulf refining hub) and PADD 5 (highest, includes California) run about $0.70.
When PADD 5 diverges sharply higher (a spread above $1.20), it usually signals a California refinery outage. When PADD 1 (East Coast) diverges from Gulf Coast beyond $0.50, it usually means a Colonial Pipeline disruption or a cold-weather heating-oil draw. These spreads are leading indicators for where the national average will move next week.
| PADD | Region | Typical spread | What flags a problem |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | East Coast | +$0.05 | Spread >$0.50 → Colonial Pipeline issue |
| 2 | Midwest | −$0.05 | Big spike in Apr–May → blend transition |
| 3 | Gulf Coast | −$0.20 | Sudden rise → hurricane risk |
| 4 | Rocky Mtn. | −$0.10 | Usually stable; refinery outages rare |
| 5 | West Coast | +$0.50 | Spread >$1.20 → CA refinery outage |
Inventories tell you about next week
In parallel with the retail report, the EIA publishes a Weekly Petroleum Status Report with crude and product inventories. Gasoline inventories below the five-year average heading into a demand peak (summer driving, holiday weekend, winter storm) forecast higher retail prices 2 to 3 weeks out.
Inventories above the five-year average (typical in January through March) forecast softening prices. This is the single strongest leading indicator for near-term direction, and it's free to monitor.
Finding the releases
The retail report lives at eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_w.htm and is free without registration. The Open Data API (eia.gov/opendata) gives programmatic access for anyone building tools — this is what fuelsaver.pro's /trends/ dashboard uses under the hood.
For consumers who just want the bottom line each week, the EIA also publishes a one-page "Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update" PDF every Monday that summarizes the key numbers in plain language. That's the quickest read in the whole US economic-data calendar.
The takeaway
The EIA report is the closest thing we have to ground truth on US gas prices. Everything else — news stories, app averages, social-media sentiment — is downstream of it. Five minutes with the Monday release will tell you more about where prices are headed than an hour of watching cable business news.
