No, Terry. Not this time. Update: Came back to town (Ft. Wayne) after 2 days at the lake cottage, and prices had plummeted to $2.65/gal.
Gasoline prices could keep falling Updated 8/30/2006 9:05 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Subscribe to stories like this By James R. Healey, USA TODAY Gasoline prices are falling fast and could keep dropping for months. "The only place they have to go is down," says Fred Rozell, gasoline analyst at the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS). "We'll be closer to $2 than $3 come Thanksgiving." Travel organization AAA foresees prices 10 cents a gallon lower by the end of next week. It reported a nationwide average of $2.84 Tuesday, the lowest since April 20. It's good news for consumers and the economy. Continued lower prices "may act like a tax cut" and stimulate spending, says Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City in Cleveland. He calculates that higher energy prices the first six months cut growth of consumer spending 1 percentage point. The U.S. average for a gallon of regular peaked this year at $3.036 Aug. 10, according to OPIS/AAA daily surveys. That's slightly under the high of $3.057 Sept. 5, a week after Hurricane Katrina battered petroleum production in the Gulf of Mexico and caused fears of fuel shortages. OPIS' Rozell figures prices will jump again next spring. Behind the current drop: •The end of summer. Driving slows, reducing demand for gasoline. And federal requirements for clean air, summer-blend gasoline end next month, making gasoline cheaper to refine and import. •Sluggish demand. Gasoline use in the first eight months of the year is up 1% vs. a year ago, less than the 1.5% to 2% growth that's typical, says Michael Morris, analyst at the U.S. Energy Information Administration. "Wholesalers are trying to get rid of product. The growth in demand for gasoline has really tapered off," he says. Wholesale prices are falling faster than retail gasoline prices, meaning stations are making more money than when prices were $3. Wholesale prices Tuesday ranged from $1.77 to $1.79 a gallon, well below the $2-plus prices typical until recently. •Petroleum traders, worried that prices are too high to last, are selling their holdings. That pushes prices down. They also believe hurricanes won't disrupt Gulf of Mexico production, OPIS senior analyst Tom Kloza says. Crude oil, which accounts for roughly half the price of gasoline, ended New York trading Tuesday down 90 cents, at $69.71 a barrel. That's the first time it's closed at less than $70 since May 4.
36.00 to fillerup today...down from plus 50.00 few weeks ago. Anyone besides me remember 5 gal for 1.00? jif
JIF... <t>I remember .26 a gallon when I was a Soph in HS. Ah for the days of the V-8 and no worry about gas prices.</t>
I started driving a motorcycle in 1974, I know that fuel was less than $1/gal then but I can't remember exactly how much less. I think it was about 80 cents/gal. I remember the big stink of gas going above $1. Most stations had pumps that were incapable of registering that price so they set the price per gallon at half of what they were charging and then multiplied by two to get the total sale. This was around the 1976 or 1977 time frame.