Drivers pumped: Gas price dips below $2
A continued global glut of crude oil pushed the average price of gas in the US under $2 a gallon on Monday for the first time since the height of the Great Recession.
As the average price of gas slipped to $1.998, motorists were saving about $550 apiece annually, according to the AAA.
“Drivers across the country are celebrating the historic return of cheaper gas prices,” Marshall Doney, AAA’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “The lowest gas prices in nearly seven years are a holiday gift that few consumers could have imagined when gasoline was $4 a gallon.”
The savings, along with wage growth, lower unemployment and improved confidence levels, seems to spark “heavier” than expected crowds at retail stores across the country, Nomura Securities said in a report on Monday.
Despite the pull of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” Super Saturday on Dec. 19 was likely “the biggest instore shopping day of the year thus far,” the Nomura analysts said in the report.
The shoppers were rewarded with deeperthanexpected discounts, the report said.
Roughly 91 million Americans will hit the road and drive at least 50 miles during the holiday season, AAA reported.
The most common price for a gallon of unleaded gas is $1.899.
Kansas City, Mo. — at $1.68 per gallon — is the metro area with the lowest average price of gas in the US. California has the highest gas prices on the continental US, at $2.72.
In New York, the average price is $2.26, AAA reported. In New Jersey, the price is $1.88 — or about $237 a year less than in the neighboring Empire State.
Oil prices were down about 20 percent in December alone as the world is awash in crude.
The US has become a large producer over the past several years and OPEC has decided not to cut production, hoping to drive the prices lower — a move that would force many US wells to close because they have a higher breakeven price than in the Middle East.