AND IT’S GOING LOWER!
Gas dips below $2
The wait was worth it at at least one Massachusetts gas station yesterday, where prices at the pump dipped below the $2 mark — and analysts say those low, low prices will soon be much more common as we head into fall.
“I’m going to call my brother in Alaska and gloat,” said Zachary Peters of Hamilton, who was waiting in line for $1.99-agallon fuel at the Costco station in Danvers. “I was surprised to see the line this long. I was wondering why, and now I know.”
Weakening global demand for oil, the end of the summer driving season, concerns about the Chinese economy, and a scheduled shift to a cheaper blend of gasoline will make visiting the gas station an even less painful experience in coming weeks, analysts said.
Petroleum Analyst Jeff Pelton at GasBuddy.com put it this way: “The good times are here to stay.”
“The reality is we see no reason why they shouldn’t go down each month from September, October, November, December,” Pelton said. “We feel that each month we could be looking at 8- to 10-cent drops, which could put places that are at $1.90 now at $1.50. You are really going to see crazy prices in the November-December time frame that this country as not seen in God knows how long.”
Oil prices fells to a 6-year low early last week before rebounding, but analysts don’t see anything pointing to a long-term rally.
Prices have dropped 24 cents in the Bay State in a month, with the current average at $2.42 a gallon of regular, according to Mary Maguire, public affairs director for AAA in southern New England.
“We had not seen in mid-August (prices) this low in maybe more than a decade,” Maguire said. “It looks as if the fact that we have a really strong supply of oil and gasoline in the U.S. coupled with the fact that there is concern about the economy, those factors seem to be keeping the price of oil low for now.”
GasBuddy.com shows a handful of stations around the state hovering just above the $2-a-gallon mark.
Hiccups both global and local could cancel those expected drops, though, as we head into the winter, Pelton said. A hurricane could slam through the Gulf of Mexico, shutting down refineries. Or a flareup between Israel and Iran could spook markets into much higher crude prices.
Those concerns are thousands of miles away from the Danvers Costco, where cars lined up in eight lanes to take advantage of the $1.99 deal. Most lines ran four cars deep.
The wait didn’t bother Colleen Cook of Malden. “It’s awesome. I come up here for the cheap gas, absolutely. It’s totally worth the wait,” she said.
Paula Bartlett of Rockport saw some equilibrium in the low prices.
“I’m sending a picture to my daughter who just moved to Spain,” she said. “It’s definitely worth a long wait especially with the stock market last week. Lose in one place, make up for it somewhere else. I’m filling up, totally filling up.”