FILL ’ER UP

Average gas prices hit summertime low across state

Time to gas up, get in your cars and drive. Who knows how long gas prices will stay so low? Average gas prices in Florida fell to a summertime low of $2.42 on Monday — 34 cents lower than a year ago and 20 cents below the national average, travel club AAA reported in its weekly Gas Price Update.

While the slide might be good news for consumers in the short run, the reason for the slide isn’t such good news: Slowing global economic activity has traders projecting lower demand for the energy needed to make and move goods around the world.

OPEC is forecasting “oil market fundamentals to decline for the rest of 2019, due to a slowing economy,”

AAA’s report said.

Patrick DeHaan, analyst for the price comparison website GasBuddy.com, wrote Monday that the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China has clouded energy markets and “weighed significantly on oil prices.”

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was priced at about $56 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. A year ago, it was $66.43. The national average price for a gallon of gas has declined for five straight weeks to $2.62.

The lowest price available without a wholesale club membership in Broward County was $2.17

at a Speedway and an Exxon, both at North University Drive and Northwest 33rd Street in Davie, according to GasBuddy’s searchable gas price map.

The lowest available price in Palm Beach County was $2.29 at Rocket Fuel on North Dixie Highway in Lantana and Wawa on West Boynton Beach Boulevard in Boynton Beach.

In Miami-Dade, Walmart on Southwest Eighth Street near Southwest 70th Avenue had the lowest price at $2.27.

Increased demand in the run-up to Labor Day weekend — the last major driving holiday of the summer — could propel gas prices moderately higher over the next couple of weeks, AAA said.

And, of course, a major hurricane could threaten to disrupt shipping and refinery activity in the Gulf of Mexico, creating a rush to fill tanks and cans that

The lowest price available without a wholesale club membership in Broward County was $2.17.

would almost certainly drive up prices.

But once summer is over in the U.S., weather cools down, consumers drive less and oil companies begin to switch over to less-expensive winter fuel blends. Prices generally descend to their lowest points of the year in December.

Meanwhile, all eyes remain focused on the U.S. and China, DeHaan said. He noted that crude prices rose about $1 over last week as both countries de-escalated tensions and showed a “less aggressive tone” toward their ongoing trade disagreements.

JENNIFER LETT/SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL Cumberland Farms’ gas prices were at $2.33 in Deerfield Beach on Monday.

PAUL SAKUMA/ORLANDO SENTINEL Prices at the pump fell to their lowest level of the summer and 34 cents below last year at this time, AAA said.

DREW ANGERER/GETTY Among the reasons crude oil prices have been falling during the summer are concerns by traders that the U.S.-China trade war will reduce shipments of goods — and lower demand for energy needed to move them.