August gas holds above $4 for a record month as Trump announces US control of Venezuelan crude
The national average for regular is $4.09, a penny under last week, and August is now the most expensive August at the pump on record. AAA's count shows the average above $4 every single day this month, the first time that's happened, past the old August high set in 2022. Crude is stuck in the $80 range on Strait of Hormuz volatility, so the small week-over-week dip doesn't buy jobbers or c-store operators much room. Demand isn't helping the case for cheaper gas either: EIA put gasoline demand at 9.04 million barrels a day last week, up from 8.68 million the week before. With demand up and crude holding in the $80s, prices could stay high for a while.
The Venezuela deal
Trump announced a deal he's calling the biggest oil deal in world history, giving the US a majority stake in Venezuela's roughly 65 billion barrels of reserves, and he says it will lower gas prices. For your supply picture, any effect comes a lot slower than that. Venezuela pumped about 1.117 million barrels a day in July by OPEC's secondary sources, it's currently exempt from OPEC quotas, and Bloomberg reports Caracas is weighing whether to leave OPEC entirely, with US officials in the room for those talks.
For US refiners the near-term hook is feedstock. Venezuelan heavy crude runs well in Gulf Coast coking units, and names like Marathon Petroleum are already being tied to how the barrels get reallocated. If more Venezuelan heavy actually reaches US docks, it could ease costs for the refiners set up to run it. Could. None of this shows up at the rack next week, and a headline about 65 billion barrels in the ground is not the same as barrels on a ship.
Refiners and waivers
Trump is set to meet US oil refiners next week to talk about high fuel prices, per Bloomberg. Worth watching what comes out of that room, because the tools a president reaches for when pump prices bite tend to hit operators directly: RVP waivers, SPR moves, jawboning on margins.
On the waiver front, Georgia's Department of Agriculture already approved a federal fuel waiver meant to boost supply and pull prices down. For jobbers that means a wider slate of gasoline you can legally sell into that market for now, which can loosen a tight local supply spot.
Drilling isn't riding to the rescue. Baker Hughes had the US oil rig count down 5 this week to 447, with gas rigs up 5 to 132 and the total flat at 588. Producers aren't adding oil rigs at $80 crude, a sign they're not treating this as a shortage worth chasing.
What to watch
Whether the Venezuela deal turns into actual heavy-crude cargoes at US ports, and how fast, is the question that matters for refinery margins and feedstock costs. Watch what Trump's refiner meeting produces next week, especially any push on summer-blend waivers that would change what jobbers can move. Watch Qatar too: the LNG force majeure is now extended into November with Hormuz transits still blocked, so the gas side of the energy complex stays tight. If the strait reopens, crude could ease. Until then, August's record probably isn't the last one this summer.