Skip to footer

Gas prices' big fall: sharpest drop in almost 4 years

Gas prices' big fall nationwide was the sharpest since 2008. Gas prices averaged $3.54 per gallon, taking a big fall down 20 cents from two weeks ago. 

|
Mel Evans/AP/File
People lined up to fill gas containers at the New Jersey Turnpike's Thomas A. Edison service area last week near Woodbridge, N.J. Gas prices took their biggest fall in nearly 4 years Monday, dropping an average of 20 cents per gallon nationwide.
  • By Reuters

| New York

The average U.S. price for a gallon of regular gasoline took its biggest drop since 2008 in the past two weeks, due to lower crude oil prices, a big price drop in pump prices in California and Hurricane Sandy, according to a widely followed survey released on Sunday.

Gasoline prices averaged $3.5454 per gallon on Nov. 2, down 20.75 cents from Oct. 19 when drivers were paying $3.7529 at the pump, Lundberg said.

The decline was the biggest two-week price drop since the survey recorded a 21.9 cents price decline Dec. 5, 2008 due to a crash in petroleum demand during the global recession.

Even though many people had to line up for gasoline for hours after Sandy devastated much of the Northeast coast, the storm played a part in the price decline as many would-be consumers were not able to travel as a result, according Trilby Lundberg, editor of the Lundberg Survey.

Lundberg also cited the seasonal dip in demand that typically comes after August.

While demand appeared to be very high for gasoline in New York and New Jersey after the storm, Lundberg said that purchases were down because many people could not get to fuel.

However, supply shortages were not causing an increase in the average price of gasoline, according Lundberg.

"There is a fear among retailers that they will be accused and prosecuted for price gouging if they raise pricesenough to prevent running out," she said, adding that the problems would be unlikely to end soon.

"It's going to be a long and hard recovery for infrastructure and fuel supply but also for fuel demand," Lundberg said.

Another reason for the total U.S. price decline in the latest survey is California, the biggest state consumer, where pump prices fell 49 cents in past two weeks after an extreme price increase a month ago because of refinery problems.

The Nov. 2 survey shows that gas prices have fallen a total of 29.21 cents in the last month, Lundberg said.

The highest prices for regular gasoline recorded in the Nov. 2 survey were in San Francisco at $4.05 a gallon, while drivers in Memphis, Tennessee were paying the least at $3.11 per gallon. (Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Gas prices' big fall: sharpest drop in almost 4 years
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1105/Gas-prices-big-fall-sharpest-drop-in-almost-4-years
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe