December 18, 2009
For another week, the national average price of gasoline has gone down, but only slightly. The price Friday is $2.589 a gallon, down less than a nickel in the last seven days, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
The national average price of diesel fuel is $2.79, down less than two cents a gallon from last week.
The cheapest gas, on average, is found in Missouri, at $2.388 a gallon. The most expensive gas is in Alaska, where the average price Friday was $3.392 a gallon.
The price continued to fall in California for another week, with the statewide average hitting $2.914 a gallon on Friday. California's most expensive gas is still in the San Francisco metro, with an average price of $2.999 a gallon. The state's cheapest metro for gasoline is Yuba City, at $2.835. Los Angeles is about in the middle, at $2.91 a gallon.
Though gas prices have come down in recent weeks, they are still much higher than one year ago, when the national average was $1.67 a gallon. Fuel prices have remained stubbornly high despite plentiful supplies and weak demand.
In fact, crude oil prices dropped sharply over the last two weeks on supply fundamentals as well as new strength in the dollar. Some analysts said it was a previously weak dollar that pushed oil prices back up to the $80 level early in the fall.
"Many economic signals are also pointing to a slow return for oil demand, a good thing for consumers in the short term because sluggish oil demand will help moderate retail gasoline prices," said Andrew Delmege, AAA's manager of regulatory affairs. "The domestic and international economic environment has only improved slightly, and most indicators suggest the road back from the recent recession will be a slow and potentially bumpy one."
For the remainder of 2009 consumers can probably expect retail gasoline prices to remain mostly stable, barring any unforeseen events. For the year ahead, price stability at the pump should be the rule.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's recently released short-term energy outlook for early 2010 anticipates oil slowly climbing back to $82 per barrel by year's end.
